


A is For Animals?

by squad51rescue



Category: Emergency!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squad51rescue/pseuds/squad51rescue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The two new paramedics from Station 51 encounter various animals, both four legged and two legged, during one of their first shifts together. A little light reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crawlies, Venom, and Coils

“Not late..not late…not late,” came the whispered mantra as the dark haired man shot through the opened back bay door of the fire station, flew up the passenger side of the red squad, and flung his partially opened gear bag in through the opened window. He slid to a skidding halt next to his new partner of several weeks, and sheepishly grabbed the proffered dress hat that was slyly extended to him. Jamming it on his head, he uneasily turned to face the captain.

“Nice of you to join us, Gage,” Dick Hammer stated dryly, glaring at the newly certified paramedic. He stared at him for a moment, watching the slow blush crawl slowly up the young man’s neck and tint the reddish, tanned skin of his cheeks. His lips turned up slightly at the corners as he also noted the unruly hair now squashed by the hat, the three days’ worth of facial hair shadowing his lip and jaw, and the dried mud clinging to the hem of his pants and to the sides of his dusty black boots – clearly evidence of last shift’s rescue. “And, Gage?”

“Uhh..yes sir?” The clearly flustered and embarrassed paramedic stammered, looking everywhere but at the man in charge.

“Come to work prepared to work, not looking like you just worked a landslide rescue and a three alarm fire to boot! Is that clear?”

“Yes sir! Won’t happen again, sir!” Muttered snickers bounced around the half circle of men facing the captain; Hammer turned his head slightly to the side to hide the grin that kept threatening to overtake his face and ruin his hardnosed reputation with this brand new station. Thank God he would have a few more shifts to reel in Gage’s impetuous ways and hopefully get him on an even, calm float before the permanent engine crew showed up for their new posts.

After going over the day’s assignments and the latest announcements, Hammer dismissed his men to their duties and returned to his office to begin his never ending mountain of paperwork. Roy DeSoto, the senior paramedic of the pair, took the few steps necessary to bring him to the side compartment of their squad and unlocked the door. He paused and looked at his visibly vibrating partner, hands jammed in his front pockets, who had moved up behind him. He laid a stopping hand on his arm as the dark haired man pulled a hand free from his pocket and started reaching for the bio-phone.

“Gage, why don’t you go clean up, and I’ll check the supplies and take care of the radio check.” 

After a second of thought, John Gage nodded and held out a hand for Roy’s hat, which Roy gladly handed off to him. Watching his hyper partner take off in the direction of the locker room, Roy smiled and began pulling the boxes out, wondering exactly what he gotten himself into asking the other man to be his partner.

Supplies checked and the radio check complete with Rampart Hospital, DeSoto crossed the bay and poked his head into the locker room. In the process of wiping shaving cream off his face, his younger counterpart looked over at him and grinned, cheekily flicking an imaginary speck of foam at him before grabbing his comb and dragging it through his black hair.

“I think Johnson just made a fresh pot of coffee; you want me to pour you a cup?”

“Nah, I think I’m on caffeine overload right now. Must have guzzled about eight cups of it on the way home, “Johnny replied, tossing his shaving kit into his open locker and grabbing up his blue uniform shirt slung carelessly over the bench. Picking up his newly shined boots with one hand and shrugging the shirt on over his white v necked t-shirt with the other hand, he dogged Roy’s heels right into the lounge/kitchen area, poking his head into the fridge while Roy grabbed a clean mug and poured coffee.

Leaning back against the counter, Roy watched in amusement as John shook the milk carton, then proceeded to open it and drain it dry, gulping audibly. The two linemen sitting at the table, open newspapers in their hands, looked up and made oinking noises, before casually returning to their interrupted reading. Gage simply laughed, wiping the heel of his hand across his newly shaven skin, and tossed the empty carton into the trash. He bent over and yanked on his boots.

“What exactly were you doing on your three days off, Gage?” Roy asked curiously, thinking of how he had used his own much needed time - sleeping, yard work, and spending some well overdue quality time with his wife and children.

“Camping, hiking, a little climbing….Superstition Mountains in Arizona. Man, that is some beautiful country over there, ya know?” Gage pulled a chair away from the kitchen table, spun it around, and dropped into it facing the back, resting his sunburned arms across the top.

“Still a little hot in Arizona in September, isn’t it?” DeSoto queried, staring pointedly at the red arms and the even redder v-shaped patch of skin visible below his partner’s collarbones. He figured it had to be pretty hot for his already summer tanned partner to get sunburned.

Johnny shrugged. “Roy, my brain was so fried from three months of studying and taking exams, I figured a little more sunbaking wouldn’t hurt. ‘Sides, didn’t spend all of my time outside.”

”Meaning?”

“A few side trips here and there…” his partner answered, an almost dreamy look settling over his features while a slow smile tugged his lips upward.

Roy rolled his eyes, but realized he wouldn’t get any more out of the younger man, at least not right now. He glared at Gallagher and Peters, who had both given up on the pretense of reading the paper and were staring at John in various stages of admiration and curiosity.

“So…..Gage,” Peters drawled out, his southern accent sounding almost foreign in the California fire station. “You got a chick over there in the desert?”

John’s eyes crinkled as the slow smile erupted into a toothy grin, teeth flashing a brilliant white against his tanned, slightly reddened face. “Wouldn’t you…..” was all he managed to reply as the tones sounded out, effectively ending the conversation.

The paramedics made their way to the squad, donning helmets and tightening straps as their captain answered the dispatcher and then handed the address to DeSoto, who in turn passed the slip of paper to Gage. He scanned the address to verify what he had heard, then directed his partner.

As they headed down 223rd Street, Roy chanced an amused glance sideways at Johnny, who was muttering something and kicking his feet in annoyance at the forgotten, opened gear bag at his feet. He finally gave up and propped one foot up on the seat, and let the other one rest on the bag.

Sam Lanier’s voice came over the radio, cancelling the call. John acknowledged it with a brief, “10-4 LA”, and then resumed his rummaging around on the floor, this time with his hands. Roy flicked off the lights and sirens and pulled into a parking lot to turn around.

“Owww!” Gage exclaimed, jerking backwards in his seat and waving his left hand frantically. This surprise move was followed by several, calculated hard stomps of a booted foot, and a muttered expletive. Roy bit back his snort of laughter at the unexpected word that flew from his normally reserved partner; he watched in puzzlement as his partner wiped at something on his boot with the call slip.

“What……?” Roy began, then shut up as Johnny angrily whipped up the scrap of paper, opening it to show Roy the almost unrecognizably squashed scorpion smashed on it.

“Bark scorpion. Stupid thing must have hitched a ride in my bag; I used the bag for a pillow when I was camping. Nasty thing nailed me on the finger…” John wiggled his left middle finger at Roy, before folding the paper back up, carefully avoiding putting his fingers anywhere near the tail.

“Uhhh….is that dangerous, I mean the bite? Do you need to go to Rampart? I don’t remember covering this in our training.” Roy queried, peering at the hand his partner was now flexing and shaking in frustration.

“Nahhhh….only bad for little kids and old people. Hurts like hell for a bit, then it tingles, then it will probably go numb,” Johnny replied, slouching down in the seat slightly and leaning his head back, his lips narrowed in a grimace of pain.

“Sounds like you’ve been stung before? Isn’t there anything you can do for it?”

Letting out an annoyed sigh, Johnny just shook his head and drew one leg back up on the seat. “Several times, and no, nothing you can really do. Pouring bleach over it is one of the remedies suggested by my peop….ahhh, by some people, but that’s never really worked for me. I’ll take some aspirin when we get back to the station; that will take the edge off, plus the pain will be gone in an hour or so anyway.”

Roy took the hint and shifted the squad back into drive; they made the short trip back to the station in silence. Johnny stared out the window, leg bouncing slightly on the seat while Roy kept the rest of his comments and questions to himself.

Once they were back in the safe harbor of the apparatus bay, Johnny catapulted himself out of his seat, dragging the bag after him. He unceremoniously dumped the contents of the bag on the cement floor, and began picking up each item of clothing, shaking it, and flinging it into a pile. Roy, who had rounded the back of the squad, leaned casually against the compartment door, folded his arms, and observed the frenzied movements of his, clearly still caffeine strung out, partner.

Trying and failing to keep the amusement out of his voice, Roy cautiously asked, “You didn’t go home after the last shift, did you? Looks like all that stuff is dirty.”

“Nah, headed right out,” he replied, looking up from the floor, where he was now kneeling next to the bag. He gave it a furious shake, carefully looked inside of it, then turned it inside out. “I was planning on heading back yesterday morning so I could get stuff done, but I uhhh…kinda got detained.”

Roy looked upwards, as if beseeching help from another source, then squatted down next to Johnny and helped him stuff the dirty laundry back into the bag. Apparently he was going to have to pull the story out word by word. “So how did you get “detained” exactly?”

Gage paused in his actions and glanced around, almost furtively, before answering in a low, quiet voice. “See, there was this girl…..we really hit it off. I met her up in Sedona, she’s really into the vibes up there, ya know?”

At Roy’s head shake, Johnny threw up his hands in a “whatever” gesture, and lurched to his feet. He grabbed the now zippered bag and headed for the locker room, again looking around before he continued the dialogue. “Anyway, she spent the last two days hanging around with me, hiking, swimming, whatever, so I decided that the least I could do was to offer her a ride home. She rode up to Sedona with some friends, so it was just as easy to take her home to Tucson, then it was to go back to Sedona."

John shrugged, opening up his locker and tossing the bag inside. “That’s it, end of story.” 

He reached up to the shelf and grabbed a bottle of aspirin, dumping two into his palm before returning the bottle and slamming the door closed.

“Why didn’t you just leave Tucson earlier?”

“Well, ahhh, her roommate was gone, and we both really needed showers, plus we were , uhhhh, tired ‘cause both nights before that it was too hot to sleep in the back of my camper, so we just rolled my sleeping bag out on the ground….come on, Roy!” The telltale blush was crawling up Johnny’s neck again, effectively darkening the sunburn to a mahogany hue; plus it didn’t help that Roy could no longer keep his amusement to himself and was snickering.

“Come on yourself, Junior! I may be married, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy hearing of your adventures, especially with the way you tell the story!” Roy gave into his laughter and collapsed on the narrow bench in front of the lockers; Johnny glared at him in mock hurt and crossed over to the sinks to rinse down his pills.

“Squad 51, woman down, 1634 Clayton Blvd., 1-6-3-4 Clayton Blvd, cross streets Wilshire and Beverly, time out 09:08,” interrupted the tones, both men pausing to listen, before heading back towards the squad.

“Squad 51, 10-4,” Hammer replied, materializing out his office to take the call.

They were out in the street before Roy looked over at Gage; he was rewarded with a lopsided grin. All was definitely right between them, he thought to himself, with his own internal grin.

They pulled up to the curb in front of a ranch style home; an older man was standing in the lush green yard waving frantically at them. Dropping his helmet on the roof of the squad, Johnny quickly unlocked the compartment door and grabbed the bio phone and the drug box. After a quick glance at Roy, he trotted across the thick grass towards the man, wondering briefly why such a beautiful lawn had a bumpy texture to it.

“It’s my daughter! She just collapsed, in here, follow me, here…” His words floated out behind him as he bolted through the front door, leaving the paramedics scrambling to catch up to him.

Taking in the scene with a quick glance, Johnny set the bio phone down on the coffee table and slid the black drug box across the floor towards Roy, who knelt down at the daughter’s side with his back up against enormous floor to ceiling bookcases. While Roy checked her pulse, John flipped the lid on the orange box and screwed the antennae in.

“Rampart, this is Rescue 51, how do you read me?” He queried, pulling notebook and green pen from his pocket and glancing over at his partner, who was now counting the young woman’s respirations. He cast a professional but appreciative look at the young woman; she was dressed in a white miniskirt that showed off her long, tanned legs and her striped top was tied off snugly beneath her ample breasts. He had to bite back his grin at how quickly his partner removed his hand from the bare skin on her stomach after getting the count. He dropped his head and focused his attention on the bio phone.

“This is Rampart, read you loud and clear, 51,” came the reply in Dixie McCall’s professional, but pleasant radio voice.

“Uh Rampart, female about age 20, probable syncope episode, her pulse and respir…” Johnny broke off abruptly, his mouth opening in shock and surprise as he looked back over at Desoto. 

Completely oblivious to what was transpiring behind and above him, Roy wrapped the bp cuff around the woman’s arm and began to pump it up; judging by her fluttering eyelashes and normal readings, the woman was already waking up. Intent on watching the dial, he didn’t notice for a few seconds a weight sliding across his back and sliding forward over his right shoulder. Finally feeling something odd, he looked up from his intent perusal of the numbers and saw Gage had half risen to his feet, his hand pointing at Roy and a look of horror on his face.

Stethoscope still in his ears, Roy couldn’t make out words his partner was mouthing; he instinctively raised his hands toward his shoulder and touched smooth, slightly cool, whoops, shouldn’t have ran my hand upwards, almost feels, scaly? Roy gulped and slowly removed the ends of the stethoscope from his ears; he wished he hadn’t when he could clearly hear his partner’s appropriately hissing words, “Roy…….snake!”

Swallowing hard, the light haired paramedic slowly glanced down and stared at the enormous expanse of brown, and black patterned skin that was undulating downward on his shirt. A choking sound erupted from below him; their female patient had raised herself on her elbows and was giggling wildly.

“Walter, you naughty boy! That’s where you’ve been hiding! Come here, baby…” she crooned, raising a hand to stroke the snake as he, tongue flicking, slowly slid his way down Roy and gracefully moved onto his owner. Roy raised himself to his feet, pressing back against the bookshelves until he remembered that was where the snake had appeared from. He abruptly danced his way around the woman’s feet around to the other side, momentarily distracted by a thump. Johnny, who had moved around the coffee table to come to his partner’s aid, had taken a fast backward step at the woman’s laughter. The backs of his legs hit the edge of the table and down he went, on his backside, with a thud.

The two partners stared at each other in disbelief before the squawking of the abandoned bio phone broke their reverie. Johnny spun around, still sitting, and grabbed up the black phone. “Sorry, um, Rampart, we had a situation. Patient alert and uh….stand by….” 

He glanced over at Desoto, who had bravely approached the young woman, and was asking her questions. After several giggling answers, Roy looked over his shoulder and gave a John a thumb up. “Refuses treatment, Rampart. Will advise, see own doctor.”

“10-4, 51.” Dixie’s curiosity laden voice replied. Gage was a blur of motion as he packed up the phone and trotted quickly towards the front door, only slowing down enough to check that Roy was finished with the patient. Seeing that his partner was having the now standing woman, snake casually wrapped about her neck, sign the form required for refusal of treatment, Johnny bolted out the door. He slowed only when his feet hit the cushy grass, kicking in irritation at the bumps he kept encountering.

“Geesh, you’d think that they could drag a roller over that,” he muttered in frustration, stomping his feet on the sidewalk to rid his newly polished shoes of the sandy granules clinging to them. “What is that stuff, anyways?” 

He was wiping his feet on the grass at the edge of the sidewalk when Roy finally appearing, sporting a satisfied grin. “Hey John, Amber wants to thank you.”

Johnny looked in the direction Roy was pointing; Amber was standing by the front door, snake still draped over her, waving at them. “Thank you, fireman! Make sure Roy gives you the paper!”

The dark haired paramedic sketched her a quick wave before turning to Roy in confusion. What? He mouthed to his partner, pointing to himself and raising his eyebrows. Roy dropped the box on the shelf before fully facing the younger man.

“Well, Johnny, she took quite a liking to you. She asked me to give you her phone number.” He handed him the folded piece of paper, still grinning.

Gage stared speculatively at the paper in his fingers before slowly turning his head and gazing with new interest at the lovely lady still standing at the entrance. His eyes started at her feet and tracked up her long legs, moved past her narrow waist, lingered on her, well, her assets before moving up…..and locking, loading, freezing on the brown, geometric patterned stole reflecting the sunlight…….no way!

“Huh! What’d you do, make friends with that snake?” he groused, shaking his leg in irritation, and sliding the paper into his shirt pocket.

Roy watched him in amusement a moment, before shutting and locking the door. “It’s a python. I guess it got out of his cage several days ago and has been sleeping on the bookshelves; she was very grateful that we, uh, found Walter. She was so worried about him that she hasn’t been eating; that’s why she fainted.”

“You mean that thing hasn’t eaten in two or three days? The snake, I mean!” Johnny’s last word was punctuated by a grunt, as he was currently involved in a strange dance that consisted of him jumping on one foot and brushing at his leg, then repeating the same motion on the other foot. “Ahhhh! Something’s biting me! Help me out here Roy!”

After several minutes of frantic brushing and squashing, John finally gave up and dropped to the curb. His back to the house, he pulled off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pant legs. Again several minutes crawled by as both men located and smashed the ants that were marching determinedly up John’s legs. After they were fairly sure that they had exterminated the biting insects from his itching legs, he rolled his pant legs back down and thoroughly examined his socks and shoes. Quickly putting everything back where it was supposed to be, he detoured to the edge of the lawn, squatted down, and peered at the grass. Yep, ant hills, hundreds and hundreds of them. He limped over to the squad, shaking his head, and slid in. He glanced quickly at the house, hoping that at least Amber had retreated into the house before he began his macabre dance of embarrassment. Knowing his luck, both she and her father had watched it from one of the front windows.

Roy settled into the other side and called them in available, glancing over at Johnny as he did so. His partner appeared deep in thought, rubbing absently at the stung finger from earlier. Roy shifted into gear, slowly pulling away from the curb. Johnny finally shifted in his seat, turning slightly to face Roy.

“Ya know, Roy, I really don’t like snakes.”

“I can take or leave them, although I have to admit when Walter started slithering down my shirt, it was definitely all in the leave category. My son has been asking about getting one….Amber gave me some suggestions on where to start in case we decide to get one for him. But absolutely not a big one like that, maybe a corn snake.”

Johnny shook his head forlornly. “Nope, the only good snake is one on a stick roasting over a fire, or fried on a plate. Like the fried rattlesnake at that place in Phoenix, yep, the only way.”

Roy couldn’t think of a reply for that one, so gave it up and concentrated on his driving. He abruptly slowed down and started to pull over when Gage squirmed on the seat, and jammed a hand under the waistband of his pants. Roy quickly averted his eyes and stopped the squad under the low hanging branches of a tree, not wanting to witness the murder of an ant, or ants, daring to go where no ant should go, especially on a man!

After a long pause and a string of incomprehensive mutterings, Johnny blew out his breath in a disgusted huff and wiped the ant guts from his fingers on his leg. “I just don’t believe this. What next, flying squirrels?”

He slumped down in his seat and gazed dejectedly out of his open window, tapping his fingers on the window frame, and stubbornly refusing to turn his head to look at DeSoto, whom he knew was looking at him.

“Johnny…” Roy began softly, fighting the sudden impulse to grab the younger man’s chin and force him to look at him. Both men jumped when a sudden clunking noise hit the roof; they both caught a glimpse of it as it clattered down the windshield, scurried across the front of the squad, and then scrabbled back up on the roof in a flurry of noise.

“What the hell! Did ya see that? Was that a…no way!” Johnny bellowed, flying up on his seat and swinging his upper body out of the window.


	2. Jabber, Cluck, and Phew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More animals plague the shift for the new paramedics......

Hearing strange noises emitting from the roof of the squad, and not being able to see what his partner was doing, as he was only visible from the waist down, Roy grabbed for the door handle to exit the vehicle. The abrupt sound of Gage sliding back into the seat halted his motion, and he whipped his head back to look at the other man.

“Roy…” Johnny began, hands still gripping the door frame above him as his head came into view. He looked warily over at the older man, a sheepish look crossing his face. “I kinda…….”

“Was that what I thought it was?” Roy interrupted, his normally low pitched voice raising slightly as he chattered on, oblivious to Johnny’s rapidly changing facial expressions. “Furry, brown, a collar? Do mon...”

“Roy!” Johnny finally snapped, effectively halting the chitter chatter streaming from his partner’s lips. John finally released his white knuckled hold on the window frame and wiped a hand across his face in frustration. Either the unflappable Roy DeSoto was having a delayed reaction to that cold blooded reptile slithering across his body, or he had mistakenly agreed to be saddled with an emotionally unstable rescue/paramedic partner. Surely DeSoto’s reputation as a level headed, calm man in a crisis hadn’t been exaggerated, had it? Nah, no way, he had done his homework on the man; he suspected Roy had done the same on him before asking him to partner up with him.

Had to be that snake call that was flustering Roy…… Wandering thoughts were rapidly yanked back to stark reality when another clatter came from the rooftop; both sets of eyes rolled upwards as if to peer with x-ray vision through the metal roof. Johnny slapped a hand down on the seat, once again grabbing Roy’s attention. Roy swallowed hard, took a deep breath to gain control of his brief panic attack, and focused hard on Johnny’s wide eyed, somewhat bewildered expression.

“Roy,” John quickly blurted out, afraid of losing the other man’s attention. “I uhhhh….left my helmet on the roof and that…….that monkey is ummm…….playing with it?”

His attention finally focused on the words Johnny was trying to squeak out, Roy stared at Gage incredulously. “So it is a monkey!”

Gage ducked his head and ran a hand across his jaw. “Yeah, yeah, definitely, a weird looking monkey, with a collar on, no less, okay?”

“You’re asking me, then, how do you take a helmet away from a monkey?” DeSoto queried seriously, but then his shoulders began to shake quietly as a vivid image played through his mind. Johnny stared at him, opened his mouth, shook his head, and then closed his mouth. His lips twitched and then erupted into a lopsided grin.

“Well, my uniform allowance is pretty well shot from that cave in, and that sewer rescue, and I already lost one helmet before I came on with 51’s, so……” he let the words trail off as his hand fumbled behind him for the door handle, and he half tumbled, half stepped backward onto the street. After calling in on the radio to request animal control, Roy vaulted out of his side of the truck, snickering.

“This I have to see!”

Well, Gage was definitely right. There WAS a monkey on the roof, with a pink and blue collar encircling his scrawny neck. Strange looking thing, really, were they even legal to have as pets? Roy moved around to the front of the squad and watched the multi colored animal banging Johnny’s helmet up and down on the squad roof. Having only seen chimps and orangutans at the zoo, he had no idea of what kind of monkey this white faced animal was, and wasn’t sure how it was going to react to the presence of Gage, who had jumped up on the back of the squad and was working his way towards the now frantically chattering monkey.

DeSoto leaned forward on the hood, placing both hands down on the warm surface. He could hear his partner’s voice talking low and quiet to the animal, who was now making a sound that sounded like, barking? Johnny apparently thought it strange too, for he had stopped in his forward stalk about two feet from the agitated animal, arms slightly outstretched. With a final outraged squeal, the monkey leapt into the air, trying to take the helmet with him. Between the weight and John’s grabbing hand, the primate gave it up and instead flew onto John’s hastily ducked head, and partway down his back. Another flying leap onto the brilliant yellow air bottles, and then the monkey vaulted up into the branches of the tree. Roy could hear the pet’s complaining chatter easily from his frozen position.

Taking a deep breath, Roy slowly dropped his eyes from the tree down to Gage, who was slowly straightening up, still gripping his helmet in his left hand. He watched as John lifted his other hand and gingerly touched the back of his head, before sliding it down and feeling the back of his neck and then his shoulders. He glanced at Roy, raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, making a face at him. He turned and took one step towards the back of the truck, pausing to track the location of the still chittering animal.

Shaking his head, Johnny turned again and agilely vaulted over the side of the squad, landing flat footed on the pavement next to the sidewalk. He stayed there a moment, gazing up at the tree in disbelief as Roy finally moved around the squad and stopped at his side.

“You ok there, Gage?” He queried, reaching a hand up to pull the other man’s shirt collar back to check his neck. He could see several scratches on his bare skin and moved his hand up to check his scalp but was thwarted by John’s slapping hand.

“Leave it, would ya? I’m fine, you can clean ‘em and put some stuff on them, but not here, ok?” Pivoting around, John put his hand on Roy’s chest and suggestively pushed him back a step, jerking his head towards the tree as he did so. Roy gave his own nod in understanding and spun on his heel, once again going around the front of the truck, keeping a wary eye out for the return of the monkey.

The slowing down of a vehicle caught his attention and he paused, leaning his upper body slightly to the left of the opened door he was standing behind. He recognized the white truck of Animal Control, similar to their own vehicle.

“Hey, you guys call about a monkey?” The driver inquired, poking his head out of the window. Roy nodded and grinned, pointing a finger towards the tree.

“Did she have a pink and blue collar on, by chance?”

“Yep, that’s the one. You’ve seen her before?”

“Oh yeah! We were out here two days ago when she got loose, scared the living daylights out of some kids. Then they turned right around and went up a tree after her, kinda like that one she’s in now. You should have seen it, tree swarming with screaming kids and one swearing monkey! At least it sounded like swearing; I don’t know if she was totally ticked off or just figuring they were all her own kind and was telling them to pipe down.” The driver laughed, slapping the steering wheel.

Roy leaned a little further away from the door towards the men, trying to keep his own laughter in check as he wondered just how far Gage would have gone if the monkey had dragged his helmet up the tree. A flash of his seemingly limber partner swinging through the tree in hot pursuit of his stolen headgear almost did him in; he had to clutch at the door frame to keep from falling over as he let the laughter roll out.

“Just out of…curiosity….” He gasped out, “what kind of monkey is that?”

“Squirrel monkey,” the man replied, sketching a quick wave at DeSoto and pulling forward as another car came up behind his truck.

Still laughing, Roy dropped into the seat and pulled the door closed. “Flying squirrels, John, flying squirrels!”

He turned towards his partner and looked at him. Johnny was leaning forward in his seat, elbows on knees, helmet clutched between both hands, eyes closed, and shaking shoulders hunched forward. Roy couldn’t tell if he was shaking from laughter or reacting to his own delayed shock. His own mirth dissipated as he reached out a hand.

Johnny answered the unspoken question by slowly tilting backwards and sideways, letting his weight rest on the door as he lifted a shaking hand to cover his face. “Not wearing this helmet ‘till I disinfect….it…..with bleach…don’t care if…we get a three alarm…not gonna do it,” he choked out, dropping his arm on the window frame and banging his head down on it, several times, as his slightly hysterical laughter filled the cab.

Roy smirked and started the engine, throwing it in drive and not giving in to his impulse to look behind him in the mirrors. It took almost three miles before his young partner calmed down and glanced at his wide brown leather watch band, shifting moods quickly.

“Aww man, I’ve got meals today, don’t I?” He questioned, hiccupping and absently scratching at his legs.

“Yep! Need to stop for groceries?”

“Yeah, guess I got enough. “ John finally answered, rifling through his wallet and squinting his eyes in concentration as he calculated. “At least for lunch, anyways. Can I borrow some ‘til I collect it from the guys?”

“No problem. What are we having?”

“Huh, not sure….” He broke off as the radio interrupted him.

“Engine 51, squad 51, motor vehicle accident, cross street Loma Vista and Pine, Loma Vista and Pine, time out 9:42.”

“Squad 51, 10-4,” Johnny acknowledged, hearing their captain do the same. He picked up the map book off the floor, glancing warily at his helmet that was next to it. Glancing at Roy out of the corner of his eye, he kicked it in irritation and bent his head over the map. “Hang a right up here, then go three blocks to Verona….”

“Got it,” Roy replied, his own helmet snugly strapped in place. He hoped Hammer didn’t catch the infraction; he sure didn’t blame Gage for not wanting to wear it after that monkey had messed with it. They rode in silence to the scene where they found a single car, a blue Duster, with only its back tires on the street. The rest of the car was up over the curb, front smashed into a light pole. Both men looked at the pole, which was leaning precariously over the sidewalk, the top of it touching a tree. Their glances followed the path of the pole, lingering on the leafy tree and scanning the branches as if expecting to see a horde of monkeys swinging through it.

Roy shook his head at their paranoia as he jumped out of the squad; he definitely needed to cut back on his caffeine intake! In deference to his bare headed partner, he tossed his helmet back on the seat before closing the door. He could hear the low rumble of their Crown Firecoach as it pulled up, sirens already silenced.

He trotted over to the driver’s side door, bending down to peer through the window. A young woman, teenager probably, was in the driver’s seat, holding a hand to her bleeding forehead and leaning slightly forward over the steering wheel. She turned her head to look at him, smiling.

“I really did it this time, didn’t I?” She asked sadly. “Dad is going to kill me for wrecking the car.”

“Just take it easy….we’ll get you out of there. Are you hurt anywhere else besides the cut on your forehead?” The door opened easily under Roy’s hands, and he reached in and gently leaned the girl back against the seat. He could hear Johnny on the other side of the car, setting down the trauma box and the bio phone and opening the door. He felt the seat dip slightly as the other man crawled across the seat and paused, probably scanning the back seat to make sure she was the only one in the car.

He could hear the sounds of the men from their station checking the car, scanning for fuel leaks and possible fire. Funny how all this stuff flickered through his mind, standard procedure for an accident scene, really. But now, the responsibilities of his new position had him kneeling down and checking the teenager for fractures instead of just pulling her out. And instead of just checking for a pulse, he was taking her pulse and counting the beats, things that weren’t quite yet second nature to him or his equally inexperienced partner.

“No, just the cut, I wasn’t going that fast. I got kinda distracted and just, well, jumped the curb and whacked the pole. The car, is it, fixable?”

The paramedic glanced through the front windshield at the crumpled hood of the Plymouth, and figured it wise to keep his opinions to himself. “Sorry, miss, don’t really know.”

He took the gauze and Kerlix roll that Gage handed him and applied pressure to her cut, satisfied that she was not injured anywhere else. “So what distracted you, anyways?”

“Oh, it was Sammi. She jumped on my shoulder then down by my feet, by the pedals you know.”

“Sammi?” Gage’s head shot up and he stopped his backward slide across the seat, unable to stop the image of a screaming monkey from replaying in his mind. “Who’s Sammi?”

“My skunk. She’s so sweet, she’s just like a cat.”

“De-scented, I hope, “Roy mumbled, casting an amused look at his partner, who was now up on his knees peering over the seat into the back; even as he watched, Gage’s head and arms disappeared as he bent over the seat, scanning the floor below. Finishing the bandage on the girl’s head, Roy helped her slide out and steadied her as she stood upright beside the damaged car.

“Ah, Dad’s here. Would you find Sammi for me, please?” The teenager beseeched, laying a hand on DeSoto’s arm.

“Sure, I think my partner may have found her already, though,” he replied, turning the girl slightly so that she could see Johnny rising up over the seats, holding the ebony animal carefully with both hands. The expression on his face was priceless, as it was a combination of astonishment and disbelief.

“Uh, yeah, here you go,” Gage blurted out, twisting around to face the pair and holding out the skunk. Sammi sat docile between his hands, the only thing moving was her twitching nose. The teenager let out a squeal and took the animal from Gage’s hands, stroking her and slinging her against her shoulder.

“Thank you, thank you! Hi Dad……..” the girl’s voice trailed off as her father appeared next to Roy. John, satisfied that his partner would finish up with the pair, resumed his interrupted trek across the seat and climbed out. Grabbing a box in each hand, he headed for the passenger side of the squad to stow the boxes.

“Gage, the girl ok?” Captain Hammer came up beside the paramedic as he was closing the doors of the compartment. Folding the 4x4 gauze pad that he had soaked with alcohol and clenching it out of sight in his fist, Johnny finished turning the key in the lock before looking over at the older man and nodding his head.

Ever since he had met the captain, John couldn’t shake the strange feeling that he had seen or met him somewhere before. Maybe at a fire or one of those charity events the fire department held every so often, but yet it seemed like there was an image burned in his mind of his captain holding a cigarette and wearing a cowboy hat.

Smiling slightly, Johnny looked over to the crumpled car and watched for a second as a small group of men gathered by the front of it and discussed the precariously leaning light standard. He shifted his attention back to his captain, who had turned to watch the gathering. “Yeah, she’s fine. Roy’s got her dad signing the forms now. Cap, did ya see that skunk?”

“Yes I did. Didn’t know that you could keep them for pets, though. See you boys back at the barn.” Hammer turned away, then paused and looked back over his shoulder at his paramedic. “What was that call for animal control about?”

Gage unconsciously rubbed at the scratches on the back of his neck, which were beginning to itch. “Ah, that was a monkey, sir.”

The startled captain pivoted around to face the younger man, staring in disbelief. At his question, John had immediately lost his somewhat amused poise and was shuffling his feet and rubbing the back of his neck in a distracted manner. Almost seems embarrassed, Hammer thought, or maybe guilty of something?

“A monkey.” Hammer’s voice was flat, the two simple words not asked, but merely stated. Johnny caught the tone and straightened up, meeting the man’s gaze directly and keeping his own voice level and emotionless.

“Yes, sir, a monkey. Someone’s pet that got loose. It jumped on the squad and then ran up a tree, so we called animal control.”

Sure that there was more to the story, Dick merely inclined his head in acknowledgement, deciding to leave further questions for when they returned to the station. He was definitely looking forward to reading their log, he thought, as he turned and headed back to the damaged car. He nodded at DeSoto as he passed him and continued on.

Roy walked over to his partner, who had one hand clenched on his hip and was rubbing at his neck with the other. Johnny tore his gaze away from their captain and looked at Roy.

“She gonna be ok?”

“Yeah, if she has any problems her dad will take her to their doctor. You ready to head out?”

“Sure, sure.”

The men climbed into their truck and headed out. Roy drove towards the grocery store that was about two miles from the station, wondering what Johnny had in mind for lunch. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the other man yawning, then rubbing a hand wearily over his face, pausing in his task of fervently scrubbing the inside of his helmet with a 4x4.

“Caffeine running out?” He asked, slowing to make a turn. Gage glanced at him, trying to stifle another yawn. He reached behind him and hung up his helmet, apparently satisfied with its cleanliness for the moment.

“Yeah. Sure had some strange calls this morning, haven’t we? Cap wanted to know why we called animal control…”

“Snakes and monkeys,” Roy mused, smiling. “And ants! And then a skunk! Did you tell him about the snake?”

“No way! It was hard enough trying to explain about that weird monkey, I’m not sure he even believed me about that!” Johnny’s voice rose in indignation, but then he giggled and shook his head in amusement. “Uh huh, snake, ants, monkey, skunk…and don’t forget about that scorpion. Geesh, Roy, maybe we’re in the wrong line of work, at least today anyways.”

“I know what you mean,” Roy agreed, pulling into the parking lot of the grocery store. His partner seemed to awaken fully at the sight of the huge chain store; he grabbed up the HT and waited impatiently for Roy to park. The men had just reached the front of the store when the HT swinging in Gage’s hand squawked.

“Squad 51, stand by for response.”

“Squad 51,” Johnny replied, not bothering to hide his sigh as they abruptly turned around and headed back to the squad. The call came in for an unknown type rescue off of Thornwood Road, one of the roads that ran through a canyon on the edge of their district. The paramedics looked at each other and grinned when they realized they had simultaneously rolled their eyes; a call that far out meant that lunch would be delayed or, for them, probably wishful thinking.

Strapping his helmet in place, Roy flicked on the lights and siren while John perused the map and checked his notes for any road closures or construction that could delay them. They were traveling down the dirt road only several miles away from the address, a tornado of dust twisting behind them, when dispatch canceled the call.

“Second one cancelled this shift,” Roy commented, tossing his helmet down between them. Johnny hooked several fingers under his chin strap and pulled it upwards, running his fingers over the strap and then lifting it to his nose and sniffing. Grimacing, he pulled off the helmet and stretched a long arm forward and grabbed the 4x4 he had tossed carelessly on the dash.

“Hopefully nothing that they are going to regret cancelling,” he reflected thoughtfully, scouring the strap thoroughly with the still damp gauze. He lifted the helmet up towards the light and scrutinized the strap before resuming his scrubbing. “But hey, maybe still some time….ya know?”

“Maybe,” Roy conceded, knowing exactly what John was implying. He too was almost afraid to come right out and say it, maybe jinx their chance to eat, even though he knew it was silly. He tapped the brakes to slow their approach to a slower moving older pickup truck loaded with crates which was rumbling along in front of them. Roy leaned to his left to see if it was safe to pass. Noticing the impending hill and limited visibility, he thought it best to wait. He dropped back in deference to the dust clouds threatening to suffocate them through the open windows.

He looked over at Gage, who was still wiping at the strap. “Monkey spit?”

“Huh?”

“You’re obsessing over that helmet. You think that monkey had rabies?”

“Rabies?” The dark haired man squawked out, dropping the helmet. His right hand immediately slapped to the back of his head, feeling for the scratches under his hair, before dropping to his neck. “Seriously? Do monkeys get rabies? Really, Roy?”

Slightly astonished at his partner’s paranoia and gullibility, Roy snickered but immediately felt contrite when he saw the panicked look Johnny was shooting at him. “Johnny…”

“Whoa! Watch out Roy!!” Gage’s arms, crossing at the wrist, reflexively shot straight up to protect his head as a rectangular shaped object came flying straight toward the windshield. Roy stomped on the brakes and jerked the wheel. They heard a splintering crash as whatever it was hit the road in front of them. Both men leapt out of the truck and ran to the front, sliding to a fast halt at what lay at their feet.

“You have got to be kidding!” Gage exclaimed. “We almost got killed by a crate of…chickens?”

DeSoto just slowly shook his head as he took in the sight of the five or so brown chickens pecking and indignantly strutting themselves out of the remains of the wooden crate. Running a hand through his reddish blonde hair, he looked at the dust cloud disappearing in front of them. The probable cause of the flying chicken missile was already too far down the road to catch. He wondered briefly if he should radio in the incident, but as he didn’t know the license number and probably couldn’t describe the truck, he decided against it. This area was laced with dirt roads that intersected at four way stops; the truck could have already turned off onto another road. He could only hope that the rest of the crates were more securely fastened.

He turned his attention back to Johnny, who was standing with his hands jammed in his front pockets, thumbs hooked through his belt loops. He was watching the chickens, eyes squinted against the dust that was lazily settling down and coating the paramedic’s trouser legs and boots with a cocoa colored film. He looked up and met Roy’s gaze; he shrugged and shook himself out of his reverie. He headed back to the squad and reappeared a moment later, pulling on his gloves.

Watching his partner pick up the pieces of the splintered crate and toss them off to the side of the road, Roy finally forced himself to move. Feeling decidedly giddy, he wondered if the day’s events, especially the snake incident, were affecting his emotional state. He usually prided himself on his calmness and his ability to remain almost aloof during most situations, keeping his thoughts and observations mostly to himself. But today, that call seemed to have shaken his reserved self to the core, bringing out a side that he wasn’t even sure that he knew he had. He hadn’t missed the annoyance or disbelief earlier in Johnny’s voice when the younger man had finally raised his voice to catch his attention; he knew that he had been blathering on about that monkey with no good reason.

Roy sighed and made shooing motions towards the two remaining chickens still in the road; the rest had scampered off into the sparse, dry vegetation along the side of the road to scavenge for whatever chickens liked to eat. Feeling slightly clownish, he flapped his arms at the renegade fowl, who seemed determined to run in the opposite direction of where he wanted them to go. After several abortive attempts to move the stubborn birds, he paused to catch his breath and was astounded by the strange cackling sounds that seemed to be erupting from Johnny.

His partner, who was kneeling on the road picking up the remaining pieces of wood, was shaking with laughter. He finally looked up at DeSoto, a huge smile lighting up his face. “Roy, they’re chickens, not cows! You don’t herd chickens!”

“Ok wise one, then what do you do with them? Why don’t you show me your chicken herding techniques?”

“Hell, I don’t know what to do with ‘em! This is the first chicken I’ve seen since I’ve moved to LA, except for on a plate…”

“Yeah, yeah, fried and all that, just like the only good snake is a fried snake.”

Having had just about enough of the misbehaving fowl, Roy picked up several stones and side armed a direct hit on one of the chickens; he was sure that throw would have made his high school baseball coach proud. Unfortunately for his hapless partner, however, the hen didn’t appreciate his dead on aim. With an indignant squawk, she flew straight up into Johnny’s face.

With a muffled oomph the surprised man, who was rising from his kneeling position with both hands full of crate pieces, tipped over backwards and landed on his back. Wings outstretched, the chicken launched a furious beak and talon attack on Johnny’s chest and sunburned neck.

An explosive oath erupted over the furious racket the chicken was shrieking. John’s arm shot up and his gloved hand grabbed the hen by her legs, flipping her upside down and away from his body. He slowly rose to a sitting position, his outstretched arm holding the still wildly flapping bird. Using his free hand, he pushed himself slowly to his feet.

Roy, a stone still clenched in his fist, guiltily dropped it and blinked rapidly several times. He watched silently as Gage nonchalantly strolled to the edge of the road and made a flinging motion with his hand, tossing the chicken to her freedom. Looking down at the other hen who was now close to his legs, he casually nudged her off the road with a dust covered boot. Only then did he look at his partner, his dust and sweat streaked face inscrutable as he studied Roy.

After several drawn out seconds, Johnny shrugged and seemed to throw off whatever dark thoughts were taking root. He did a slow pirouette, holding out his arms and looking in dismay at the fine dust covering him from head to foot. “Aw, man, this is ridiculous. This is the only clean shirt I have left. And the pants, well forget that, YOU saw what they looked like when I came on shift.”

Swallowing hard, Roy wasn’t sure if Johnny had just absolved him of blame, or was merely biding his time before laying into him. He hoped it was the former. His partner definitely knew how to handle chickens, however; he wondered where he had picked up that curious skill and why he hadn’t admitted to it. Johnny hadn’t volunteered any information about his past or even his family, but Roy felt and hoped that the serious and sometimes intense younger man was beginning to relax around him and would eventually be comfortable enough to talk about everything, not just the trivial day to day things.

He decided to adopt Gage’s seemingly “forgive and forget” attitude and smiled. “It’s just dust, John; most of it brushes right off.”

Roy demonstrated by slapping at his own pants, respectfully moving away from Gage as he inadvertently started stirring up a dust storm.

Johnny just shook his head and moved over to the still opened passenger door of the squad. He opened up the door to the first compartment and pulled the door backwards towards him, creating a small pocket of privacy. He looked around; satisfied that there was no movement on the road in either direction, he unbuttoned his blue uniform shirt and yanked it off. Stepping away from the door, he shook the shirt out vigorously and then turned and tossed it onto the seat of the squad. Glancing around again, he pulled off his t-shirt and quickly used it to wipe down his face and arms and towel it through his hair, before wadding it up and throwing it on the floor of the cab. He was pulling back on his blue shirt when Roy stopped him with a restraining hand on his arm.

“Hold on Johnny. Those scratches on your neck need to be cleaned, they look pretty inflamed.” Roy grabbed saline and sterile gauze out of the drug box and paused while Gage pulled his shirt back off. Grumbling, he held the uniform shirt away from him and obligingly bent his neck.

“Hurry up, man, that’s all I need, is some kind of reprimand when some old lady files a complaint about the half naked fireman standing in the middle of the road….”

Roy grinned but wisely held his tongue as he poured the saline on Johnny’s neck and the back of his head. Using the gauze, he carefully but quickly cleaned the scratches as best as he could. He spun his partner around and checked, then cleaned the hen induced scratches and skin breaks on his chest and neck. “Ok, get your clothes back on, flasher. I’ll spray them after you get your shirt on, to preserve your modesty. You might want to rinse your eyes out with the rest of this saline; they’re pretty red from the dust.”

Johnny snorted but shrugged the shirt back on, buttoning it up and tucking it in with well-practiced movements. Within minutes his battle wounds were taken care of, his eyes rinsed, and the paramedics were safely ensconced in their office on wheels. Roy had finished up the clearing of the debris off the road; all five chickens were happily scrounging for feed at least two hundred feet away.

Exhaling a long, loud breath, Johnny glanced over at Roy. “Do you think that…” he stopped and rubbed his stomach.

“Yeah, let’s go get some chow,” Roy answered, completely forgetting his previous thoughts about jinxing them and tempting fate. Fate immediately answered him with a man down call. Johnny groaned and acknowledged the call, then bent over and searched for his helmet in the debris littering the floor of the cab.

“I knew it,” he muttered darkly, shooting an annoyed look at DeSoto. “I knew I shouda’ left you in that house and let that hungry snake take a whack at ya!”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Man down…….” Johnny mused, his fingers on his left hand unconsciously feeling his chin strap for lingering evidence of monkey, while his right hand traced the scratches on his neck. “Sure hope it doesn’t involve something slithering, like the woman down call.”

Roy eyeballed Gage, fighting the urge to chastise him about playing with the strap AND his recent damage. Seriously, sometimes this guy reminded him of his five year old son! Sliding his eyes back to the road in front of him, he grunted out an “uh huh” and decided to keep the rest of his thoughts to himself.

Pulling the squad to the curb behind the sheriff’s car, the paramedics glanced at each other before leaping out. Johnny had the compartment door unlocked and open and was pulling out the biophone when the deputy exited the house and advanced towards them, shaking his head.

“John, Roy….you won’t need the equipment. He’s gonna need an ambulance, though, I’ll call that in,” Scotty informed them, pausing by the front fender of the squad. He continued on towards the patrol car, calling back over his shoulder as he went. “Oh, he’s in the kitchen. Just follow the sound of his…..er…..singing.”

“Singing…” Johnny sneered, shoving the orange box back and smacking the door closed with a little assistance from his knee. He shot a fleeting look around the neighborhood and locked the door before stepping over to the opened window of his door; he tipped his head down and let his helmet drop to the seat before following Roy up the winding sidewalk.

Roy cautiously pushed the front door open and moved inside, wrinkling his noise at the repugnant odor that assaulted him. He trod forward, calling out “fire department” as he went. Warbling led him in the direction of the kitchen; he wasn’t sure if he should cover his nose or protect his ears from the two prong attack on his senses.

The off key crooning led the paramedic to a doorway off to the left of the cluttered living room. He stopped abruptly, one foot hovering in midair as he took in the scene before him. Johnny crashed hard into him from behind, pushing Roy forward several inches as he lost his balance on the slippery floor.

“What…?” Gage exclaimed, steadying the other man with both hands, then immediately jerking his hand up to his face. He clutched at his nose in pain at the unexpected collision; breaking his schnoz on the back of his partner’s head would not be a great start to this call. Hand over his nose, he rose up on tiptoes, tilted forward more, and peered over Roy’s shoulder to see what the unexpected halt had been about, not yet noticing the crunching beneath his feet.

“Holy shi….Shiites…..” he muttered, biting back the word rolling off his tongue. At the mumbled exclamation in his ear, Roy moved quickly forward, swallowing hard and trying to force the bile back down his throat. Between the sight in front of him, the stuff moving under his feet, the dull pain in the back of his head from being used as a brake for Johnny’s nose, and the weight of his partner pushing him forward…whoops! Roy spun around just in time to keep said partner from falling forward on his face; Johnny had been inadvertently leaning so far forward against Roy that when the older man had moved he had simply followed the path of least resistance and had almost ended up horizontal.

Johnny flashed Roy a quick smile of thanks before his eyes unwittingly tracked past Roy and to the “man down” in front of them. His barely concealed grimace prompted Roy to turn back around and focus on their victim, frowning at Johnny’s whisper by his ear, “Is that Dr. Doolittle he’s singing?”

Sprawled on his back and wearing a soiled white undershirt and “tidy whities”, the three hundred pound man was still crooning his ditty, oblivious to the two firemen who were gawking at him. It wasn’t so much as the man himself, though, that had both paramedics reluctant to move forward. It was what he was lying on, and what they were currently standing in, that had them both growing roots.

The kitchen floor, as of yet an undetermined material and color, was completely covered in at least six inches of clay cat litter. And the giant litter box that they were enmeshed in was clearly a well-used receptacle; the evidence was plain in the lazily buried piles and tiny, wet sinkholes of reeking clay scattered throughout the room.

Trying to breathe through his mouth, Roy grudgingly stepped forward and crunched his way to the side of the man, who had finally paused in his serenade. He looked up at the stern countenance of the man bending above him and giggled, displaying a mouthful of colorful teeth that would have put Roy’s son’s crayon box to shame.

“Hello boys!” He tittered, waving a pudgy arm towards the phone off the hook, upended in the wasteland by his elbow. “I am clearly in need of a rescue, my dear fireman. So glad you answered the phone!”

Roy flicked his eyes towards his partner, who had warily and reluctantly trod his way to the other side of the clearly inebriated man and then paused, obviously trying to think of a good way to assist the victim without crouching in the mess under his feet. Obviously sacrificing the thought of being able to keep his pants intact for the rest of the shift, Johnny dropped to his knees and reached for the wrist of the widely grinning man while beginning their standard dialogue.

“Hi…I’m John Gage with the LA County fire department, and that’s my partner Roy over there…..Sir, are you hurt anywhere? Can you tell us what’s going on? I’m going to check your pulse here, while Roy…..”Gage broke off and hastily turned his head away, releasing his grip on the patient’s wrist and swinging his hand back up to his nose.

For a moment, Roy wasn’t sure if John was going to spew up his two thermoses of coffee breakfast or was just unable to contain his disgust at the situation around him, and had jerked his head around to spare the man his unprofessionalism. He quickly concluded it was neither as he saw the blood trickling between the younger man’s fingers and realized his own head was obviously harder than he had thought. His thoughts strayed briefly to an argument with his wife; she had called him hard headed – had she meant that literally? He winced and straightened up from his self-imposed, awkward bend and patted his pocket for the ironed, white handkerchief he knew he had slid in there earlier. He could always count on the unlimited supply of those pristine squares tucked in his gear bag by his wife; he was sure she continued that tradition from her overbearing, interfering mother but today he was glad that she did.

“Johnny…here…” he quietly vocalized, holding the hopefully plain, and not monogrammed piece of material, towards Gage. John turned his head slightly towards the soft plea, his eyes widening imperceptibly at the offering. His left hand shot out and accepted the handkerchief.

All this had been accomplished in seconds; Roy looked back down at the man, whose eyes had been ping ponging between the two in amusement.

“I’m just fine, boys…..need some help getting up….supposed to be at the hospital for some tests….lost my balance and fell………” he delivered in a rapid singsong voice, eyes still darting back and forth. He waggled his fingers at the dark haired paramedic, concern evident in his now slurring speech. “You should get that looked at, young man. Blood loss is a…uh…bad ting….ou know…..leeches now…..”

Off went the overweight man in a rhetoric mish mash of words. Muffled snorts were erupting from Gage; still trying to keep his head turned and tipped away, he waved a hand beseechingly in Roy’s direction. Roy knew Johnny was ready to erupt in an avalanche of laughter but was trying his best to stem the flow. Exactly where in their training manuals did it address this kind of situation? Was this a medical situation, or a rescue? How, in heaven’s name, did this get written up in the incident reports?

“Sir….what’s your name? Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere?” Roy’s hand hovered uncertainly over the man’s torso, not quite ready to check for respirations but unwilling to give up on his normal procedure.

The gentleman immediately stilled his waving arms and stiffened his body, trying to obtain a noble posture but failing miserably. “My name, young sir, is Dillingham Garrett. I am not hurt, just merely inconvenienced for the moment. I just cannot seem to regain my footing, in this landscape of, errr, this cat repository. Would you kindly assist me?”

DeSoto couldn’t hold back his smile any longer. “Of course, Mr. Garrett. The deputy has called for an ambulance and they’ll transfer you to the hospital for your tests. John?”

Gage withdrew his hand from his nose and looked questioningly back at Roy. At the other man’s nod that his nose had stopped bleeding, Gage slid the handkerchief into his front pocket and with a grimace, swiped his hand down the side of his pants in an obviously disgusted gesture. He pivoted around on the ball of his feet and laid his clean left hand on Garrett’s arm, keeping the right hand out of sight.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Mr. Garrett? Your back doesn’t hurt or anything?” He queried one last time.

“No…..I ssss quite righttttt,” was the slurred reply, and the arm waving began anew. John mutely shook his head at Roy, and using only the tips of his fingers on his right hand pushed himself upwards to his feet. He glanced around the kitchen looking for the sink; he knew the odds were pretty low that it would be clean but it was definitely worth a try, wasn’t it? He saw the porcelain square in the middle of the long length of counter directly in front of where he was standing. Of course the sink was overflowing with dirty dishes and pots. In fact, the whole pile of crockery and tin looked like it was ready to start a rapid, sliding journey to the cat box he was currently standing in.

Johnny swallowed hard and shifted his gaze to the left of the sink. Roy looked over at him in time to register a beautiful double take as Gage saw what was on the Formica countertop. The dark haired man’s eyes stretched wide and his mouth opened slightly in shock as he quickly swiveled his head to stare at the counters and then spun on his heel to check out the ten foot length to their right. He whipped back around and looked down at Mr. Garrett.

“Sir…” cracked his voice; he cleared his throat and tried again. “Sir, just how many cats do you have?”

Roy’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief as he realized just what his partner was implying. He slowly turned his head and took in the sight that Johnny had just viewed. Sitting, laying, or just creeping along the yards of orange and brown counters were at least fifty cats; one hundred glittering, marble eyes staring at the two paramedics with undisguised interest. Judging by the twitching and slapping that was going on with the feline tails, a lot of that regard was definitely not benevolent.

“Well, let us see ow…Mabelle just had kittens…..so shall brin this total up to, ohhh, eventy five maybeeeee.”

For the next thirty seconds the only sound was that of the firemen winning a gold medal in teamwork as they strong-armed the portly Mr. Garrett to his feet, and began shepherding him towards the exit. Since the man’s feet were bare, the conscientious medics tried to avoid letting him step in any of the obvious hazardous waste. Unfortunately, that meant some serious squishing going on under their boots. They had almost made it to the door when the ambulance crew appeared; between the four men they were able to assist him up and onto the wheeled stretcher.

“Boys, boys! Wait please….” Came the urgent call just as his strapped down migration began into the living room. Johnny and Roy froze briefly and then obligingly asked their still cheery patient what he needed. After a rather lengthy monologue, they were finally able to glean from his many kernels of dubious wisdom that he simply needed them to lock up his house and deliver the keys to the hospital. Promising him that they would take care of it, they warily looked about the cat den for the promised location of the keys.

“Right there, Roy. See the bread thingy?” Gage pointed helpfully to the three foot of counter behind Roy, where the metal bread box resided regally all alone. Except for the house keys, of course, and the even more imposing figure of a twenty pound bread guardian that sat, tail wrapped around itself, two inches away from the keys. The cat regarded them with slitted, tawny eyes and remained motionless.

Johnny snickered and pulled the penlight out of his shirt pocket, weighing its heft in his hand. “Ya know, Roy, I’m the first baseman for our softball team; I’ve got a pretty accurate arm. How far do you think that cat will fly when I wing him?” He grinned slyly and pantomimed an overhand throw.

Roy shuddered guiltily as recalled the previous incident involving a rock and an outraged chicken. He shook his head and decided not to encourage Johnny by acknowledging him; he sincerely hoped that Gage hadn’t decided to exact his revenge at this particular moment. He minced several steps towards the tantalizing silver gleam just out of reach. The chunky feline seemed to draw herself up to her full height and narrowed her eyes even more, the tip of her tail twitching slightly. Roy blew out his breath and narrowed the distance to an arm’s length, wondering whether he should just snatch the keys or employ stealth and wheedle the keys across the never ending horizon stretching out in front of him. Recalling what his lack of patience had done earlier to his new partner, he chose the plodding, turtle route.

“Nice kitty, kitty. Kitty, kitty, “he breathed out softly, sliding a little closer and slowly stretching out his hand. The cat unblinkingly scrutinized the approaching hand and stretched her jaws in a huge yawn, displaying tartar layered teeth and astonishingly pink gums flecked with black. Roy hooked a finger through the ring and lifted it up; the grey cat immediately slapped a paw out and raked her extended claws across the offending hand. He let out a yowl but had the presence of mind to keep the keys in his strafed hand.

Johnny, who had startled back a step at Roy’s yell, bumped into the avocado refrigerator and immediately moved forward, intent on aiding his muttering partner who was shaking his hand. Unfortunately, his accidental foray against the fridge had alerted the identical bookends flanking the ceramic kitty cookie jar on the top; two irritated golden fur balls launched themselves simultaneously towards the blue moving target below and landed on either side of the dark head.

A startled yelp erupted from the beleaguered fireman as his hands shot up to try and dislodge the firmly attached hairballs. Scotty appeared in the doorway just in time to see the collision of two of LA’s finest; he watched in a wondering mix of amusement and concern as they slid and slimed their way flat onto their backs.

For a moment, complete silence held reign over the kitchen. Then a faint tremble began as the clan of cats stirred into action, stretching, standing and leaping; their strident meows and protesting yowls shattered the welcome peace. Scotty leapt forward and grabbed DeSoto by the back of his shirt, encouraging him upright and then to his feet. He shoved him towards the door and turned towards Gage, who strangely enough had not moved except to raise himself up on his forearms; odder still was the fact that he was brushing distractedly at a pile of litter under his hand. One of the golden felines who had kept his position on John’s shoulder for the rapid ride to the floor was now sitting in contentment on the silver buckle and black leather belt that encircled his slim waist. Totally ignoring the warm ball of fur that was beginning to purr and knead his stomach with flexing paws, Johnny continued to stir the litter with his scratching fingers.

Scotty paused and knelt carefully behind the distracted fireman, carefully considering his next move. He kept one eye on the rumbling cat, which was slowly lowering himself to a prone position on the unresisting form below him.

“Johnny, hey Johnny,” Scotty said softly, gently touching the arm with the moving fingers that were now sliding back and forth on a cleared spot on the floor.

“Scotty…do you know that Dillingham Garrett has wood floors in here? Solid.oak.floors.” He enunciated each word slowly, his tone wistful.

“John, we need to move outside,” the deputy paused, wondering what it would take to dislodge Johnny from his befuddled state, but not agitate the dazed man, his new fur belt, or the momentarily frozen horde of mousers in front of them; he decided that appealing to the other man’s strong work ethics with simple words would probably shake him loose without upsetting the four footed population. “And uh, take care of your patient. Your partner needs help. Can you move your friend there?” Scotty gestured towards the happy cat, still kneading away on the oblivious paramedic.

“Huhhh? Oh yeah, sure.” The long fingers gave up on their envious stroking of the floor and transferred their attention to the complacent rug on his stomach, scratching the cat under his chin and then smoothly dislodging it from his body and transferring it carefully to the floor. Whatever trance he was in slowly dissipated as he blinked rapidly to clear his sight and turned his head to view his surroundings.

“Hurry Johnny,” the deputy murmured in his ear, sliding his arms under the other man’s armpits and trying to pull him to his feet. John obliged, seeking traction with his crusted boots while Scotty hooked a hand through his belt and pulled. He was relieved to see DeSoto’s helping hands help pull the now backwards moving Gage through the doorway and into the living room, where all three men made a hasty retreat through the front door. Scotty slammed the door and watched in grim satisfaction as Roy inserted the key and locked it. He had a feeling it was going to take a while to erase the image of that mass of fur stalking towards them, an undulating mob of bristling, multi-color coats, their razor sharp arsenal of talons extended. He was sure it was the fierce caterwauling of John’s new whiskered buddy who had slowed the crush down; for some odd reason it seemed that the furry inhabitants of the kitchen had paused in their vengeful vendetta across their litter box to listen to the insistent screeching issuing from that yellow tom while the men made their escape.

The three county employees remained standing on the porch for a brief moment, each lost in his solitary thoughts. Scotty finally drew himself upright and looked over at the paramedics, Gage in particular.

“Johnny, you ok there? It almost seemed like you, I don’t know, went into shock or something there for a minute?”

The younger man tossed him a lazy smile, seemingly unperturbed with his brief period of spacey behavior. “Let’s just say that if this shift keeps up the way it has been, Scotty, they’re gonna take the lion out of his cage in the zoo and replace him with me!”

He punctuated his statement with a twirling index finger pointed at his head, the universe sign for crazy, and strolled nonchalantly towards the squad, whistling the tune that their “man down” had been warbling earlier. Scotty stared after the retreating back and pursed his lips, then blew out his breath in his own whistle of amazement.

“Isn’t that the song from…..ah…rough day for you guys?” He queried, raising his eyebrows at DeSoto, who stood with arms folded, eyes wandering around the front yard, lost in his own fog. He contemplated calling an ambulance for both firemen; he watched as Roy finally brought himself back to reality and dropped his arms, rubbing at his bleeding hand.

“What the heck happened in there?” Scotty asked in growing alarm, as he stared at the hand and recalled the dried blood under Gage’s nose. “The cats do all of that? Or did Garrett go bonkers from the cat fumes?”

“No, no…” Roy answered slowly, gazing towards his partner who was busy rummaging through the contents of one of their boxes. He was too far away for Roy to see what he was searching for but apparently he found it, as he fastened up the box and threw it back into the cubby, closing and locking the door once again. He opened up the squad door and grabbed something before heading back across the yard.

Roy looked over at Scotty, who was now watching Gage lope towards them. “Not so much a bad shift as one that is getting stranger by the minute.”

“I can hardly wait to see what your partner is up to; I have a funny feeling things are just going to get more interesting.”

“Hey, Deputy, you think the cat guy has a garden hose around the side of the house?” Johnny grinned and waved the green bottle of soap in the air. Roy noticed that he had his t-shirt tucked under his arm.

Scotty contemplated his friend’s dirty hands and blood streaked face and easily concluded the reason for the water. “I don’t know, let’s find out.”

He led the way around the corner of the house to the side yard and saw a hose bib jutting out from the wall, a hose handily coiled on the ground below. Several unkempt, five foot high bushes conveniently screened the faucet from the view of the adjacent neighbor and the front yard. He pointed in the direction of the hose but was taken aback when he turned and saw that the firemen had stopped at least twenty feet behind him and were engaged in a low voiced argument. He couldn’t hear the words but easily understood the end of it. Gage simply pointed to Roy’s head; Desoto lifted a hand and felt his reddish blond locks in the back and jerked his hand away so fast Scotty was sure that he felt the whoosh of air that accompanied the lightning fast move.

Johnny rolled his eyes at the deputy as he hastened past, shaking his head at his partner’s disbelief. Geesh, didn’t Roy ever think outside of the box? Was he going to need proof of every word that he told him? What did he think would happen when they both ended up flat on their backs in excrement? He could only hope that his shirt and pants had fared as well as DeSoto’s; from what he could see the only damage to the older man was clinging to his hair. His clothes had a fine layer of clay dust on them but there were no obvious signs of toxic waste.

Roy had his blue uniform shirt flung up over the bush and was dousing his bent head with the water. John silently poured a blob of soap in the blindly outstretched hand and moved into the tiny square of concealment, deciding to wait until Roy was done. No way was he going to try and take off his shirt with his filthy hands; it was bad enough that he was going to have to scrub the IV box and the handles on the squad when they were finished here.

After their impromptu shower was complete and their clothes were inspected with, thankfully, no noticeable damage, the paramedics trudged wearily to their truck. Johnny returned his now thoroughly wet t-shirt, which they had used for their hair drying towel, to the floor in the squad. He cleaned and disinfected Roy’s hand, then wrapped it to keep it clean. DeSoto returned the favor by doing the same for the new scratches on Gage’s shoulders; the skin there was beginning to resemble a 3d roadmap with various width, depths, and lengths of red lacerations. The newest marks were still bleeding and Johnny couldn’t help a grimace of pain as Roy treated them.

“John, I think some of these are infected; we’d better swing by the hospital and have one of the docs check them.” Roy urged, delicately using an index finger on each hand to pull his partner’s shirt up and over the gouges. He stared at the material, wondering how he had missed the tears, and stepped back, shaking his head. “Did we throw our jackets in this morning when we got called out? ‘Cause you’re not going to be able to wear just your shirt; those cats shredded the top of it, and well, you’re bleeding through it……”

Gage lifted his dark head and straightened up from his slumped position against the side of the truck. He turned his head, looked down at himself, and lifted his hands in a defeated gesture. “Yeah…no….I don’t know! Didn’t you grab them? Throw them in the front compartment, maybe?”

He jerked his thumb hopefully towards the driver’s side, then paused and put his hand on the front compartment behind him. “But then again, maybe I should just wear my turnout coat? I mean, what kind of animal is gonna get its claws or teeth through that?”

Roy couldn’t help the bubble of mirth that popped out. “Offhand, the only thing that I can think of is an alligator………I think you’re right about the jackets; I threw them in the front. Too hot for the turnouts, Johnny, just pull up the collar on the jacket to protect your neck, ok?"

He missed his counterpart’s snort of disgust as he moved around the back of the rescue squad and looked for the jackets. Gage dropped into his seat, grabbing his helmet and hanging it up before leaning his head against the glass behind him. “Alligators…you know people flush those things down the toilets when they get too big to have as pets. Roy, if we get a call for something going on down in the drains, I’m ….”

“I totally agree,” the other man concurred, as he slid into his seat and tossed Johnny’s jacket across to him. “Whatever mutiny you’re thinking about, I’ll be right there with you.”

John grinned at his unexpected ally, but immediately lost the smile and slapped at Roy’s hand as he reached for the mike to declare them available. “Wait now, do you think I can throw in a load of wash when we get back and have it done before we get called out? And maybe stop at Woolworth’s or somewhere and pick up a pack of t-shirts? There’s no way I can make it through the rest of the shift in this stuff.”

“No way, partner. Even if we didn’t get called out, there’s no iron at the station and those shirts need serious wrinkle attention, plus the pants are dry clean only.” DeSoto lifted the mike out of the holder and paused, looking over at Johnny, who was trying not to scratch at his skin and failing miserably. His hang dog expression told the older man that he knew he was right, but was grasping at any possible solution.

“Tell you what, I’ll loan you a shirt and pants, we should be about the same size. And we can stop somewhere and pick up the tees; that should only take a couple of minutes.”

Johnny grinned again and stilled his hands, keeping a tight grip on the jacket in his lap. “Really? Far out, Roy - thanks!”

“What’s far out?” Scotty inquired, pushing against Johnny’s door until it closed and latched. He leaned against the frame and poked his head partially through the window, running his fingers under the strap of his helmet. He pointed a finger at Gage’s nose, which was slightly swollen. “Broken?”

‘Ah, nothing, Roy’s just going to help me out of a uniform jam,” John replied, swatting at the extended finger and then poking his own finger against the deputy’s shoulder. “Not broke, just need to get some ice on it. Hey, animal control?”

Scotty nodded and grabbed at the jabbing finger. “Yep, already called.”

Roy chimed in, smirking at the silent display of power going on between the two friends. “How about a psych recommendation?”

John’s wrist firmly entrapped in his encircling fingers, Scotty nodded again and resisted the halfhearted pulling his pal was attempting on his arm. “Under control. Heading over to Rampart to deliver Mr. Garrett’s keys to him, you boys need anything else? A police escort maybe, to the laundromat? Or maybe the car wash would be a better place to go?” He released the captive wrist and swiped several fingers across the back of Gage’s head, gleefully displaying the soap bubbles.

“Man…..” Johnny groused, dropping his hands in his lap and giving up.

Scotty laughed and pulled himself away from the cab. “Cheer up, Gage, you’ve still got two thirds of your shift yet to go!” He waved and strolled up the sidewalk towards his car, whistling.

“If only we COULD talk to the animals, talk to the animals….”John hissed, rolling his eyes and contorting his expression into a disbelieving pout as he remembered the song.

“Oh yeah, only sixteen more hours to go,” he added, mimicking the deputy’s voice perfectly. He grabbed the mike still clutched in Roy’s hand. “LA, Squad 51, available at scene.”

“Squad 51, “dispatch replied. Roy took a deep breath and started the squad, fingers tapping on the wheel as he signaled and pulled away from the curb. He headed in the direction of the station, thinking about where to stop for his partner’s shirts, grab something to eat, and find ice for Gage’s nose. Judging by the way Johnny was slouching down in the seat, eyes closed, he had crashed hard from his caffeine overdose and adrenaline rush; Roy was definitely feeling the same way. Some chow, a shot of caffeine, a hot shower, and some clean clothes would, without doubt, turn the shift around and give them something to look back on and laugh.

There was silence as Roy drove, each man contemplating the day’s events. Roy thought that while Anne would find the stories interesting and amusing, she probably would think that her husband had embellished the stories a bit; there was no way that things this strange, and all involving different animals, could happen in 24 hours. Roy actually found it hard to believe himself and he had been there! Well, if anything, he would get JoAnne’s sympathy for his experiences and had the physical proof, at least on his hand, to validate his story. Johnny, on the other hand, would have plenty of validation……

“Johnny!” Roy blurted out, causing his drowsing partner to jerk backwards and smack his head against the glass in alarm.

“What, what?” Shooting his associate an angry glare, Gage rubbed at the back of his head, making a face at the sticky soap residue still residing there and knowing from past experience that his thick hair was probably sticking out in fifty different directions.

“We really need to swing by Rampart and have those scratches checked out…when’s the last time you had a tetanus shot? And what about your head, did you hit your head when you fell? Scotty was right; you definitely were not with us there for a few minutes.”

“I could ask you the same thing, Pally! And no, I didn’t hit my head, I just…..ahhh went into hibernation mode for a moment. Geesh, Roy, did you have to interrupt…..ah man…..” Johnny crossed his arms at the wrists and ran his palms, fingers splayed flat, down his shoulders and chest as if remembering all the recent injuries that he had incurred. “Delores and me, we were going to the beach after shift, there’s no way now….stupid, stupid, stupid!” He slapped his open palm against the window frame, visualizing the sun beating down on his tenderized skin and Delores’s reaction to his stammering explanations for all of the scratches on his upper torso, his misshapen nose, and the itching, bumpy bites on his legs. But then again, she was a pretty sympathetic gal, and she WAS a nurse, so surely she would understand if they couldn’t make the beach trip? Maybe someplace quiet, where she could…….The single man smiled, dark eyelashes fluttering against his skin as his eyes closed in contemplation.

Darting quick glances over at his passenger, DeSoto viewed the parade of emotions galloping across the expressive face. Anger, realization, disbelief, consideration, and then, finally, a concluding realization of something very pleasant; Roy decided that even though their thoughts might have started off on different paths, their final destination was assuredly going to be in the same neighborhood! He snickered, thinking that he and his new partner might be total opposites in some ways, but when it came right down to it, they were still young, red blooded males.

“Squad 51, woman down, Alameda Petting Zoo, 1040 South Alameda, 1-0-4-0 South Alameda, cross streets Alameda and Pine, time out 14:30.” Interrupted the summons to their next call.

“Squad 51, 10-4,” Johnny acknowledged quickly, yanking out his green pen and scribbling down the address. He picked up the map book and paused, running a hand down his face and sucking in his breath. Reaching behind him for his helmet, he looked over at Roy.

“You know where this place is, right?”

“Yeah…” Roy answered, slapping his own helmet down on wet hair and flipping on the lights and siren.

“Last time I was there, “Johnny mused thoughtfully. “A camel spit on Tony and me…….”

“Roy?”

“What?”

Leaning forward slightly in his seat to watch the traffic and road signs, Johnny had jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from scratching his bites or touching his stinging scratches. His fingers closed around the scrap of material in his right pocket.

“Do you want your handkerchief back?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Bleats and Warnings

Roy maneuvered the dusty squad through the narrow entryway that led to the gravel parking lot of the petting zoo. He looked around him with interest as he navigated around the haphazardly parked cars, of which station wagons seemed to be in the majority. He headed towards the several buildings clustered together and flanking a wide, opened gate, which seemed to indicate the entrance.

Angling the truck near the brick walkway that led to the opened gate, Roy jumped out and met Johnny on the passenger side. His partner’s blue jacket was zipped up to the top and the collar turned straight up to cover part of his neck; the younger paramedic grinned at Roy and pointedly tightened the green chin strap on his helmet before following him down the red brick path. He started whistling a ditty before they reached the small cluster of people waiting at the gate; Roy couldn’t suppress a grin and looked over his shoulder at his warbling partner.

“I think it’s the yellow brick road, Johnny, not a red one,” he suggested, his voice laced with mirth. Johnny grinned back and shrugged, not the least perturbed by Roy’s laughing correction. He tried to ignore the thin trickle of sweat sliding down the side of his face as he hustled to keep up with his rapidly striding colleague. Definitely a little too warm to be wearing a jacket in September, he thought, as he finally caught up and caught the tail end of the conversation. A woman had fallen down in one of the pens and the employees had been afraid to let her get up, as she seemed to have injured her leg.

“Follow me please. She’s towards the back, in the goat pen. I don’t think it’s anything serious, but…” the owner shrugged, one hand beckoning them and the other sweeping towards the back corner of the park. Roy gazed in open admiration at the tidy, winding paths weaving through the various shapes and sizes of pens dotted across the several acres of the little zoo. A little oasis of animal paradise in the middle of the city, he contemplated, as he tagged along beside the woman, Johnny dogging his heels. Trees and patches of wildflowers provided shade and striking visual attraction; the normally expected metal benches had been replaced by chunks of logs, sanded smooth and coated with a clear finish and all conveniently located in the shade of the trees. Even the required trash cans had been cleverly camouflaged by silly wooden animal caricatures and the several restrooms they had passed by were built to resemble igloos. Igloos! All very pleasing to the eye, but Roy wondered how the animals fared in a place like this.

“Here we go boys,” the woman announced, stopping at the gate to a fairly large pen. She swung open the gate and waited for the paramedics to precede her into what Gage had once termed “a man trap”; although when he had uttered those words he had an amused but slightly pained look on his face. Roy remembered that run from last week quite vividly – being trapped in a small room waiting for the inner door to be opened while at least ten female college freshmen jostled against them and, judging by his colleague’s embarrassed and annoyed twitches, pinched BOTH of their behinds. The resulting bruises on his derriere were excruciatingly painful to explain to his skeptical wife, and had ultimately resulted in a day of frigid temperature in their home until Jo had relented and finally believed the story. His several days off, however, were then laced with sneak attacks from “behind”, cleverly planned and executed by his snickering wife. By the time the next shift had rolled along, DeSoto was fervently wishing for a soft pillow and quite ready for a woman free environment.

This “man trap” however, was just a simple square area of dirt and clean straw. The Hispanic woman simply closed the outer gate behind them and then motioned for the employee manning the inner gate to push it open. The young man, attired neatly in a uniform of khaki shorts and green polo shirt, did as bidden and closed the gate behind the three as they entered the enclosure.

John glanced around him, scrutinizing the area quickly but thoroughly, the feline incident reflecting quite prominently in his actions. The rectangular shaped pen contained about twenty goats of different breeds and sizes, as well as some neatly sheared sheep. All of the guests had apparently been escorted out, for only a kneeling employee, a woman, and her two young children remained at the back of the area. The woman was sitting on the ground, leaning against the fence, while her kids were plastered against the wire fence on each side of her; both children had their tiny fingers on one hand gripping the fence while their other hand clutched the long, black tresses of their grimacing mother. Johnny wasn’t quite sure if the expression of pain was from the yanking fingers of her terrified offspring or was the result of her propped up leg, now resting slightly elevated on the employee’s hat, still recognizable as an African Safari pith helmet. At least that was what it looked like, not being an expert in hats; he wasn’t quite sure but had to guess that whatever it was certainly had to be a lot cooler and probably a lot more comfortable then the black heat sucker that was currently baking on the top of his own head. He was sure his still damp hair on the top was steaming, probably emitting wisps of smoke. He swiped the back of his free hand down the side of his face, trying to prevent the trickle of salty liquid from hitting his scratches.

Johnny hunkered down beside the woman, assessing with his eyes the swollen ankle while Roy did the same across from him. Both men, while focusing on their victim, were keenly aware of what was transpiring around them. Although the college student that had helped them with the gate was distracting the animals in the pen with handfuls of feed, some of the curious goats kept drifting back to the cluster of humans.

After being butted gently for the third time, which had resulted in him almost landing across the woman’s lap, Roy firmly planted a knee on the ground and tried to angle his back as close to the fence as he could. He was hoping that he could at least see what was coming at him. There was one large goat that seemed to have become fixated on him; unfortunately it also had enormous winding horns on its bony head that Roy kept nervously glancing at. It stood about a foot away from Roy, regarding him with large, yellow eyes, a black horizontal slit prominent in each one.

A smaller, brown goat with a long tangled beard had focused its attention on John, or at least his jacket; he was nibbling busily on the sleeve. Every time Gage pulled loose the little goat bumped him and latched onto the blue material once again. Roy would have found the whole situation extremely amusing if they didn’t have an obviously distressed victim to take care of.

Speaking of distressed victims……Roy directed his thoughts away from the very distracting goats and focused his attention 100 % on the woman herself, and not just her obviously sprained ankle. The woman’s lips were pouted out in an expression of pain and annoyance as she looked at Roy; it appeared that she wasn’t sure if she should scream or start crying. Once his gaze met her dark eyes, however, he knew he was in trouble of a bigger kind.

“You’re a fireman? And you take care of injured people, too?” Her voice has taken on a sultry huskiness to it, and a slim, elegantly manicured hand softly gripped his wrist.

Roy swallowed hard and broke the eye contact, skewing his eyes towards Johnny and wishing he HADN’T done that. His partner’s equally dark eyes were wide in disbelief and he seemed to be fighting to keep his expression neutral; whether he was ready to explode in mirth or just extreme agitation, Roy wasn’t sure. That little goat now had Gage’s sleeve between his teeth and was pulling with all his might. Johnny reluctantly broke his scrutiny of the Roy DeSoto fan club that was going on in front of him and commenced a furious tug of war with his bearded nemesis.

Roy choked back his snort of laughter as the scuffle between man and goat continued but sobered immediately when the hand on his wrist moved further up his arm, gripping with a little more force then needed and sure to leave unexplainable bruises on his bare forearm. He resisted the natural urge to shake off her hand and instead tried to direct her attention away from him.

“How old are your children, Mrs.…?” The trill of laughter that met his query, while melodious, stirred uneasy thoughts in Roy’s mind. They were proved correct when she replied that they weren’t her kids, just nephew and niece.

“And you can just call me Nancy, Mr. R. DeSoto, with no Mrs. in sight for a long, very long time.” She added, with an obvious invitation weaving within her purred words.

“Sorry about that, Miss Nancy,” Roy muttered, wishing he wore his wedding ring while on the job. “Let’s just get this ankle wrapped up; you’ll need to go to the hospital for x-rays just to make sure it’s not broken.”

“Okay, anything you say!” With her free hand Nancy was trying to dislodge the tight grip of little fingers in her hair; her efforts were successful because her clinging limpets had completely forgotten their own fear of the animals. They were giggling and watching in avid fascination the fracas still taking place to the right of their aunt.

Johnny finally won the tugging bout, but only with an undignified sprawl on his rear onto the straw and dirt. His attention was immediately diverted to a different goat that was now nose deep in the opened bio-phone case.

“Hey now!” He made a furious, desperate dive for the case, visions of Brackett doing his own “chewing” of a certain paramedic when he tried to explain the teeth marks and missing knobs of the expensive piece of equipment. He flopped clumsily over the box, the palms of his hands and his chin hitting the dirt as he jack knifed his body to avoid smashing the controls of the box.

Roy, busy wrapping Nancy’s ankle, ducked his head to hide the grin that he just couldn’t keep under wraps. The sight of his hapless partner, straw covered butt up in the air and hovering protectively over the bio-phone, was just too much. The laughing kids had dropped to the ground in helpless abandon, completely releasing their clutching hold on their aunt and the wire fence. Unfortunately for DeSoto, however, their smitten relative, newly released from her hair captivity, leaned forward and grabbed onto her rescuer with both hands.

His own hands just finished with his task, Roy began to rise to his feet. He turned to face Nancy and tried to politely shrug off the clutching hands. The curly horned goat that had been standing immobile off to his side chose that moment to make his move. Bleating rapidly, the cloven hoofed mammal delivered a swift, hard prod to Roy’s backside.

Air leaving his lungs in a whoosh of sound, Roy tumbled over Nancy’s legs and crashed into Johnny, who was just slowly straightening up and still had his back to them. The partners collapsed in a flailing heap with Johnny flattened like a pancake under Roy. The older medic had instinctively tried to avoid falling on the woman’s legs; this had resulted in him seriously squashing his fifteen pound lighter cohort.

“Johnny! Are you all right?” DeSoto asked in the other man’s ear. He could have sworn that John bleated in reply.

“Get the mmmmph off of me!”

Roy finally understood the strangled words his partner was breathlessly uttering, and promptly scrambled to his feet. He couldn’t help but mentally replace the nonsensical word in his new partner’s snarled command with a few colorful words of his own; the way the day was going he was sure that both of them were probably going to be inventing a new dictionary of words by the end of the day.

Johnny immediately rolled to his side, yanking at his tightened chin strap and coughing. Roy cautiously advanced forward a few steps, holding out his hand while Gage gasped for breath.

“Gimme a minute, jus’ gimme a minute!” He growled, sucking in a huge breath of air between each spit out word. He drew up his legs and flopped gracelessly onto his back, eliciting another round of giggles from their audience, whom had been momentarily rendered silent by the unbelievable spectacle that had unfolded in front of them. He spit out a mouthful of dirt and raised his head slightly to glance towards the gate. “Thank God…..Scotty isn’t here…”

Throwing up his hands in mute surrender, Roy backed off a few paces and fought off the urge to rub the point of goat impact. He fervently hoped that bruises would not appear THERE; there was no way JoAnne was going to believe another “stranger than fiction” tale, especially when it involved that part of his anatomy.

He cautiously looked over towards the fence, giving Johnny some time to collect himself. Nancy was staring at him, the seductive smile still lighting up her pretty face. Well, at least he had distracted her enough to forget her injury. The kids were sitting on either side of her, hands over their mouths as they tried to stifle their merriment. The female employee still crouched behind Nancy, shoulders shaking in silent mirth.

Roy, remembering just where they were, whipped his head in the other direction to check the status of all the four legged creatures within the pen. They had all lost interest and wandered off, except for Gage’s bearded friend. The little brown goat was standing two foot away from him, gazing at him with adoring eyes. Or maybe the goat was fixated solely on Johnny’s jacket; Roy wasn’t sure.

Johnny, helmet now dangling by the strap and lying over his shoulder, awkwardly clambered to his feet, brushing in vain at his straw and dirt covered clothes. He noted the presence of the hopeful goat with a scowl and glanced over at the four people behind Roy. Completely ignoring DeSoto, he studied the tipped over bio-phone at his feet and tentatively nudged it with his foot. Squatting down flat footed and facing Roy and the goat, he tipped the orange case over and then gently lifted and tipped the heavy case and shook off the debris. He set it back down and hopefully lifted the handset; he froze in place and stared at the entrance to the pen.

Thinking that maybe Scotty had materialized in time to witness their second joint slapstick act of the day, Roy followed the direction of John’s gaze. It took him a long moment to understand what he was seeing; in that brief span of time the other paramedic had appeared beside him. He purposely inserted himself between Nancy and Roy, effectively blocking Nancy’s view of his partner and blocking the one sided flirting that the extremely attractive woman seemed incapable of shutting off.

Within the mantrap square of dirt stood the young male employee and the owner, Mrs. Gutierrez, along with an extremely tall man of about six foot seven, whom was currently engaged in a rather heated argument with them both. There was a lot of hand waving going on by the two hundred and fifty pound man, and Roy decided that it was the finger that kept pointing at the woman at their feet that him nervous. It appeared that the junior medic had the same apprehensions, based on his defensive movements and the way his eyes kept darting towards the squabbling trio. The towering giant was apparently Nancy’s boyfriend, friend, or something like that because he was definitely getting very emotional. Now Roy wished that Scotty WOULD suddenly appear; he sure didn’t want to become involved in some kind of confrontation, physical or otherwise, with a jealous “friend”.

Nancy, still oblivious to the drama ensuing around her, frowned at the dark haired man that had emerged in front of her. He had dropped down onto one knee beside her and seemed to be intentionally distracting her from the other fireman. She looked at him and then at his nametag, her disapproving glare switching instantly to a petulant pout, and then sliding into a mischievous smirk.

“Mr. J. Gage, you have blood on your chin….” She intoned in a solemn voice, and then messed up the delivery by breaking into a fit of giggles. Johnny self-consciously wiped at his chin with the back of his hand, succeeding in only smearing the blood into a well-mixed mixture of blood, dirt, and sweat. Sliding down the zipper on his jacket partway, he absently fished in his shirt pocket for the handkerchief, forgetting that it was currently residing in his trouser pocket; he didn’t notice the scrap of paper that fluttered out. Sharp eyed Nancy did, however, and quickly latched onto the downward spiraling missile. Her eyes opened wide as she read the phone number, the words “call me”, and the name “Amber” written in flowery, cursive handwriting.

“Mr. J. Gage, may I borrow that green pen of yours?” She cooed innocently, stretching out her hand while shushing the unwelcome interruption behind her; the little girl was beginning to giggle again and pull at her blouse. “Hush Melanie…”

“But Nancy, Joe is…..” Nancy waved off the girl’s words and wrote something down on the paper. She tapped the cute paramedic’s arm, well, maybe cute if he washed the junk off his face and his nose wasn’t quite so biggggg……

Johnny grunted in acknowledgement, distracted by the bio-phone that he had dragged over behind him. He looked up and accepted the slip of paper Nancy was waving at him, not realizing that it had originally came from his own pocket. He slid it back into his pocket, still not paying much attention to the increasingly annoyed woman.

“J Gage!”

“Yes ma’am,” Johnny responded, eyes flicking up and then settling back at the stubborn communication device between his feet. He paused, hand hovering over the box, as his brain finally shifted into awareness.

“Would you please give that to your, uh, partner, or whatever he is?” Nancy asked, sweetness dripping from every word, strongly incensed that this, this fireman, was completely oblivious to her charms and calling her ma’am! Ma’am for Pete’s sake! He was no older than her, maybe the same age, or maybe even younger!

“Roy’s married,” the words automatically rolled off John’s tongue. He finally looked up and gave his full attention to the woman after she grabbed his hand and squeezed; she was definitely emitting strong, thoroughly incensed waves of anger? Annoyance? Gage wasn’t sure; he had to admit that his concentration was being divided into at least three different camps, one of which had, to all appearances, had won his argument and was blowing in their direction.

“Ahhh, well, that’s just too bad,” Nancy conceded, again shushing the persistent nagging of the child to her left. “And what’s your name, Mr. Gage? Are you available?”

“Johnny, ‘jus Johnny…yeah, but, sweetheart……do you know that guy?” John’s chin jerked in the direction of the approaching storm, his low and insistent voice finally catching her undivided attention; the progressively agitated movements and utterances of her niece had not even made a detour in the route on the one way, man eating street Nancy was currently navigating at break neck speed.

Nancy slowly broke her scrutiny of the man in front of her to glance in the direction of the cyclone whirling towards them. A small smile broke through the blank look on her face and she waved a hand in dismissal. “That’s just Joe, he’s my boyfriend.

Gage didn’t miss the sharp exhale of breath behind him and without looking, laid a restraining hand on DeSoto’s pant leg that appeared beside him. Trying to look professional, a look he surmised he was failing at miserably due to the sweat now tracking through the dirt down both sides of his face, he laid his other hand down on the bio-phone. Releasing Roy’s pant leg, he peered cautiously at the attractive woman. “I’m going to get on the phone with the hospital now, Miss, and see what they advise.”

Both paramedics were sure they felt a slight tremor in the earth as Joe the boyfriend dropped to his knees across from them. “Nancy baby! What happened, are you alright?”

“I’m just fine, Joe honey. These nice para…para whats, guys, are taking real good care of me. Aren’t you fellas?”

“Yes, Miss,” John agreed softly, black phone finally cradled in place between his shoulder and chin as he twisted the antennae and turned the transmit knob on. He was studiously avoiding direct eye contact with either of the pair and was glad that both of Nancy’s hands were fluttering in the air and were no way near himself or Roy.

“Hey, what’s with the popsicle box?” Joe boomed out, his voice matching his stature. He pointed at the orange box and Johnny grinned, realizing just how close the bright color mirrored an orange popsicle.

“Oh baby, that’s a telephone. They talk to the hospital with that,” Nancy replied in a slightly condescending tone. “They’re going to take me to the hospital to get my ankle checked out.”

“In an ambulance? No way, come on kiddos; help Uncle Joe get your aunt. We’ll take ya over to Vinny’s, Angel; he’ll take care of you. She gonna need an x-ray fellas?”

“Uhhh, yeah, strongly recommend it. We’ll need…” John’s words trailed off as the intimidating redwood in front of him effortlessly swooped up his girlfriend from a squatting position and carried her toward the entrance, the two children following obediently. “Sign a form,” he concluded with a shrug and brief shake of his head. He looked down at the black phone still clutched in his hand, dropped it back in place, and closed the lid. He finally looked up at Roy, who was watching the procession leave the pen.

“You wanna chase after her and get that form signed?”

Roy reluctantly drew his attention away from the departing figures and met his partner’s inquiring gaze. His eyes traveled over the flushed, dirty face, the swollen nose, and the cut on his chin. “Okay, why don’t you get cleaned up and I’ll find some ice for your nose when I get done with the paperwork. Meet you at the front, all right?”

“Yeah, that’s good.” Johnny’s hand went up to his nose and gingerly felt it, than swiped again at his chin. “Man, what a day….”

Roy simply smiled and nodded his head. He picked up the trauma box and took off after Nancy and her entourage, hoping he would be able to catch up with Joe’s giant strides.

Johnny rose to his feet and picked up the popsicle box, jumping when he felt the goat once again laying claim to his sleeve. A giggle wafted through the air from behind him and he pivoted toward the sound, pulling the material from the tenacious beast at the same time. The female employee, who had been steadfastly assisting Nancy during the whole bizarre incident, had also risen to her feet and was stretching her stiff muscles.

“Oh, that’s Hercules. He’s such a nuisance sometimes. Let me show you to the staff area, there are towels and stuff there that you can use to clean up.”

“Sure, that would be great.” Johnny trotted after her, yanking his helmet over his head and carrying it by the strap in his free hand. He nodded his thanks to the young man still manning the gates of the goat pen and caught up to the helpful woman.

“Is that camel still around here?”

“Oh yes, he’s very popular. There’s usually a line for the rides.”

“Camel rides?” Well, that explained what a camel was doing in a petting zoo, John thought, following her pointing finger and catching a fleeting glimpse of the camel’s head poking up above the flowering bushes and then disappearing once again.

“Of course, that and pony rides. Both adults and kids like the camel rides; sometimes we get college kids in here just to ride the camel. I know my fraternity has done that.” She glanced at the paramedic curiously. “Are you a college student? You look familiar.”

“Not really, I take a few classes here and there. My work schedule…” Gage shrugged and followed her through a gate marked “employees only.”

“Right through there, J. Gage.” She smiled at Johnny and winked, motioning with her hand towards an octagon shaped building covered in thatch and resembling a tiki hut. “I’m Tricia Vanders, by the way. Trish, just Trish.”

Feeling the slow blush crawl up his neck at her teasing words, Johnny couldn’t help but smile back at Tricia and compare her innocent but playful demeanor with that of Nancy’s predatory stalking. “Ok, thanks…”

“I’ll be out here somewhere, take your time!” She batted her eyes at him in an exaggerated manner, twirled her chestnut hued hair around a finger, and laughed; John ducked his head in embarrassment and high tailed it into the bathroom, dropping the box and his helmet onto the small, convenient table near the opening. Spying the large sinks lining one wall of the spacious room, he wasted no time in flipping on the taps and plunging his hands and face into the stream of warm water.

Gingerly blotting his face with a cotton towel, he leaned over the sink and tipped his face up to look at the cut on the bottom of his chin in the somewhat murky mirror. The cut had stopped bleeding, but now there were small bruises beginning to bloom around it.

“No wonder that hurt so much,” Johnny mused out loud, remembering his chin cracking the ground in his efforts to protect the bio-phone. “Stupid goats…”

“HANDS UP MISTER!!”

He dropped the towel in surprise at the screeched command and spun around, reflexively half lifting his hands in the air as he looked in confusion about the restroom. When a whistle followed the shrill words, he slowly looked up and located the source of the noise. Perched casually on bamboo rods that crisscrossed the dome ceiling, two grey parrots stared down at him with black, beady eyes.

Sighing in relief, and feeling a little bit silly that for the briefest moment he had thought he was in serious trouble, he returned to the mirror and the sink and finished his cleanup. Already thinking about the cold drink that Roy was hopefully obtaining along with the ice, he picked up the towel, wadded it up, and sunk it with deadly accuracy in the dirty linen bin. He spun around and took one long step in the direction of the exit.

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”

Johnny grinned, paused, and glanced up. His good humor was rewarded with a plop of white on his shoulder; his sideways dance step wasn’t quick enough to avoid the second direct hit onto his dark hair.

“No way!” He muttered in disgust, keeping his voice down at the thought of the young lady lurking somewhere outside of the building, probably within earshot the way his luck was running this shift. “What’s with the animals and their sh…poop today, anyways?”

He stomped back to the sink, immensely grateful that the sink was deep and the faucet was a long, gooseneck; it extended up and over the basin allowing him to easily douse his whole head under it. Using the bar of soap, he thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed his hair for the second time that day. Well, at least he would get the soap out of his hair from earlier. Feeling the water running down the back of his neck and soaking into his shirt collar, he winced and ran a finger between the two collars. He looked down at the shoulder of his jacket, and then held his arm up and looked at the goat slobbered sleeve.

“This just gets better and better,” he whispered to himself, “by the time we get back to the station I’m not gonna have a stitch of clothing left on me.”

He rolled his eyes upwards and peered at the now silent parrots, who were staring back at him with avid interest. “And you two, don’t go squawking at me about…about hauling me in for indecent exposure!”

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head but couldn’t stop his lips from twisting into a smirk of amusement. Shaking his head in disbelief, he unzipped the jacket and yanked it off; he threw it under the still running water and scoured it with the bar of soap as best as he could. After thoroughly rinsing and wringing it out, he held it up by one finger and looked from it to his blood stained, cat clawed, and wet collared uniform shirt. He visualized the two garments rubbing against each other and his irritated skin.

“Guess the really wet one wins…no way I’m gonna wear those two wet things together.”

He quickly but carefully unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it off and replacing it with the wet jacket, which he zipped up all the way once again. Giving the feathered comedians a wary glance, he made a wide detour around their target zone and stopped at the table where his gear lay. Opening up the bio-phone case he flipped his shirt inside and closed it again. He grabbed his helmet by the strap and bolted outside, nearly colliding with Trish.

“Oh! John, uh, Johnny, what happened to your jacket?”

Johnny grabbed her by the arm to steady her, then immediately released her and pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You didn’t warn me about the pair of cops in there.”

“Cops? Oh, oh, I’m sorry, I completely forgot about Mo and Flo, they didn’t…oh they didn’t…oh geesh, I uhh…” she clapped a hand over her mouth and coughed, trying to hold back her laughter. She gave up, letting the laughter flow over. John stared at her for a second openmouthed; he rolled his eyes but grinned at the infectious sound.

“I really am sorry, Mr. Gage,” she choked out, finally getting control of herself and steering them in the direction of the front gate. “Those two are really something, though, aren’t they? Their owner really loved Adam 12, the TV show you know, and since he had those greys from an early age, they really picked up the dialogue fast.”

“Not a problem, it’s been one of those days. Besides, I kinda like that show anyways; I guess those birds have good taste, huh?” He teased, good humor easily restored.

Trish giggled again, shooting the dark haired paramedic a sideways, admiring glance. She wondered if she dared asked him when he was off next; she remembered the slip of paper she had easily read over Nancy’s shoulder and decided that being that forward was probably not a good idea. Although if he didn’t plan on calling Amber, he wouldn’t have kept the paper, right? So maybe he didn’t mind if woman gave him their phone numbers or asked him out? She took a deep breath and took the plunge.

“There’s your partner by the gate there…..Johnny, if you’re ever off on a Saturday afternoon, a group of us hang out in the common area of the college, so if you’re in the area and want to just stop by,” she faltered to a halt, both with her feet and her mouth and felt her own blush crawling up her neck and warming her ears.

John stopped beside her. “Umm, yeah, sure, I can do that, good deal. Ok, thanks for your help, uhh, Trish, and maybe I’ll see ya next Saturday….I’m off, yeah. Bye.” He stammered out, backing up a few steps and then heading off in Roy’s direction, wincing at his awkward school boy utterances.

Roy, noting the approach of his slightly off balance partner, moved to the side of the squad and set the two drink cups up on the top. He unlocked and opened up the compartment door; he turned back around and leaned against the side, crossing his arms and watching as Johnny closed the gap between them.

“They have a shower in there?” Roy asked, tipping his head towards Gage’s wet head and jacket. Johnny scowled at him and bumped the box onto the shelf. Spying the drinks, he grabbed one and opened up the passenger door. He stepped up into the truck, placing his right hand on the chrome rail on the roof for balance. He took a long draught of the drink before looking down at his curious partner.

“You don’t really want to know,” he drawled, shaking the cup and rattling the ice before finishing it off in several gulps. He peeled off the lid and shook some cubes into his mouth. Noticing Roy still gazing at him in amusement, he shook the cup at him.

“Roy, if you knock me on my ass one more time this shift, I’m going to…going to call up Nancy and give her your phone number!” He huffed in exasperation and dropped down and onto the seat, grabbing his door and slamming it shut. He crossed his arms; the cup still clutched in one hand, he sulkily stared out the front windshield.

Roy moved to the door and looked in the opened window. “It’s not like I did it on purpose. Here, I got you some ice for your nose, although it probably won’t do much good now.” He held out a napkin wrapped baggy, the ice within already starting to melt.

Eyes narrowed, Johnny looked at the proffered bag and accepted it with a long, drawn out sigh. “I know, I know, it’s just…..”

He held the bag up to his face and abruptly switched gears. “Say, didn’t they have any food at the snack bar? Hot dogs or somethin’?”

Roy smiled at the rapid topic change and got into the truck before replying. “Nope, just peanuts, cotton candy, that kinda of stuff.”

“Huh, figures. We haven’t even done a transport to Rampart yet, have we? Man, even that cafeteria food sounds really good right now,” he complained, emptying the rest of the ice into his mouth and crunching loudly. He tapped the empty cup on his leg and stared out his window, plucking at his wet collar with his free hand.

Roy merged into traffic, both hands lightly gripping the wheel as he thought about their runs. “I guess the upside is that you got out of cooking lunch.”

Gage shot him another irritated look. “Yeah, well, tell that to my stomach.”

Amazingly, the radio remained silent as the men made a fast stop for food and t-shirts. They pulled into the empty station and both men made a hasty retreat to the locker room. Roy went around the corner to the second row of lockers but doubled back again at Johnny’s startled yelp and a loud noise.

“Oh…” Roy was at a loss for words seeing his partner standing ankle deep in bananas and cans of tuna fish. John looked at him, looked down, and looked at him again. He bent over and picked up a single banana and one of the cans.

“Johnson, gotta be Johnson. I wonder who told the guys…Scotty!” He stared thoughtfully at the yellow fruit in his hand and deftly peeled it down and bit off a chunk. He tossed the can up in the air and shot his partner a mischievous smirk. “Don’t we have macaroni and mayonnaise in the kitchen? I think the engine crew just bought dinner!”

 


	5. Trumpets and Jokes

A peal of laughter rang out in the room, and seconds later Johnny joined in. Roy leaned against the end locker, nearly bent double with uncontainable mirth. He knew he was over reacting to his partner’s wisecrack concerning dinner, but he really needed to release some pent-up confusion at the way this peculiar shift was playing out. He ended up dropping down on the wooden bench to avoid falling on the floor in his slight hysteria. He raised his head in time to see John inadvertently start to slide down the front of the locker next to his; instead of falling on the floor he tipped sideways and disappeared within the depths of his own locker.

DeSoto jumped to his feet in alarm, laughter dying, when his partner’s long legs drew up and vanished from sight. Visions of planet eating black holes swirled through his overactive imagination. He slid to a halt in front of the locker and peered inside, just in time to hear Gage’s mumbled voice.

“Would you look at that? These things are so big I can completely fit inside. Wonder why they did that? They sure weren’t like that over at 10’s.”

Roy stepped back just in time to avoid the legs sliding back out, with the rest of Johnny remaining in a sitting position on the edge. He grinned up at Roy and swallowed his mouthful of banana. Roy just shook his head and extended his hand to help his colleague to his feet.

Accepting the proffered help, Johnny rose to his feet and kicked several of the cans out of his way; they skittered across the floor like demented hockey pucks.

“Huh, I wonder how Scotty found out about that monkey,” he mused, grabbing another banana off the floor and peeling it down.

Roy shrugged and grabbed the banana out of his hand, ignoring John’s indignant “hey!” as he trotted around the corner and returned to his locker. Mouth full of the yellow fruit, he opened his own locker cautiously, standing off to the side, and grabbed a pair of trousers and a uniform shirt off of their hangars. He peered around the corner and dropped the clothing on the bench, as Johnny was single-mindedly involved in carefully stripping the sodden jacket off his chafed and scratched skin.

Any hopes for a refreshing shower were dashed when only a minute later the tones sounded. The older medic rounded the corner for the third time and bit back his snort of amusement at the sight of his bare chested, younger counterpart furiously ripping open the pack of t-shirts with his teeth. Roy grabbed up the blue shirt from where he had dumped it on the end of the bench and dropped it in front of Gage as he moved past him; Johnny snatched it up and clutching it and a newly freed t-shirt, followed Roy out the door and into the bay.

Roy acknowledged the call and jumped into the truck. He heard one of the compartment doors slam shut as he reached for his helmet on the seat beside him; the other man breathlessly joined him a moment later, t-shirt bunched up around his neck as he struggled to yank his arms through the holes, shut his door, and grab for his headgear all at the same time. Roy turned the key in the ignition, biting his lip and keeping his head facing forward to keep his mirth in check. By the time the rescue vehicle rolled into the street, the rustling of clothes had ceased and Johnny’s hand grabbed the call slip from Roy’s grip.

“Left in about two miles at Rosemont, then hook a sharp right at Trent Blvd, should be just down the road from there….what’s this call, anyways? I didn’t catch it. Ouch!” He jammed his finger into his mouth and glared at the offending paramedic pin he was trying to dislodge from his ruined shirt; the once pressed and clean garment was crumpled up and lying in his lap.

“Uh, the call was for a possible heart attack.” Roy risked a fast glance at the balled up shirt and considered asking where John had stashed it. He recalled the slamming of the compartment door, and decided that his partner had hidden it in the bio-phone case. He smiled and pulled into the turn lane to make the left turn onto Rosemont.

“Should be pretty straight forward then,” Johnny replied hopefully, pinning his badge on over the shirt pocket. He didn’t have to voice the thought that both men also hoped that the call would be a false alarm, and not actually involve any type of cardiac trouble. He held the shirt up in front of him for a brief moment, checking the placement of the badge, pin, and nametag. Apparently satisfied, he shrugged the shirt on and buttoned it up, head turning left and right to watch the traffic and street signs as they rolled along. He leaned forward slightly to tuck his shirttails in, and then settled back against the seat with a relieved sigh.

“Let’s hope so, “Roy added in an equally optimistic tone. Slowing down as he made the turn onto Trent Blvd., Johnny directed his attention to the small crowd of people gathered on the sidewalk several hundred yards ahead of them. Signaling, Roy glided the truck to a smooth stop alongside of the curb. He jumped out, throwing his helmet on top of the squad and circled around the front of the cab. He pushed Johnny’s door closed all the way as he made his way to the already unlocked and opened compartment door, darting a quick look towards the gawking onlookers. All he could see were the soles of pointed, black dress shoes on the ground, perfectly framed within a bystander’s spread legged, blue jeaned stance.

Johnny shook his head in irritation as they approached the crowd; his polite “excuse me” had to be reinforced with a careful hand on shoulders to catch the attention of a couple blocking their way. They obligingly stepped aside to let the two paramedics through and closed ranks once again.

An older, heavy set man was lying on the ground, propped up against a wooden fence. He was perspiring heavily, yanking at the tie completely disheveled around his neck, and gasping for breath as the two men knelt down on either side of him. Johnny gently encircled the man’s wrist for a pulse count while Roy caught the man’s notice by placing a reassuring hand on his other arm.

“Sir, we’re LA County paramedics. Can you tell us what the problem is?”

“Can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. Can’t catch my breath…” the man gasped, frantically waving the arm that Gage had just released and almost cracking the hastily ducking medic in the jaw. Johnny pushed the arm back down and held it at the man’s side while counting respirations with his other hand.

“Any pain anywhere?” DeSoto queried, locking eyes with his dark haired partner as the victim shook his head. Johnny unsnapped the drug box and pulled out a paper bag, shaking it open with a quick shake of his wrist.

“Sir, I want you to breathe into this bag. You need to slow your breathing down, that’s it, nice and slow, just like that…”

The man’s panicked eyes darted back and forth between the two men as he obediently breathed into the bag; as his panting decreased, he visibly relaxed and raised a hand up to hold the bag. Johnny released his hold on the brown paper and rocked backwards on his heels, observing the hysteria giving way to embarrassment.

“God, I’m so sorry,” the man finally blurted out, lowering the bag and taking a slow, deep breath.

“Not a problem, that’s what we’re here for,” John replied in a casual tone, snapping the black lid down on the box and clicking the latches. He looked back at their patient. “What happened, anyways?”

“Oh, that, well, I was making calls, when I saw a, well a….” He stammered, trailing off in chagrin. He raised a hand to wipe at his sweating forehead and peered at Johnny, who was waiting patiently, a curious expression flitting across his face. “It was a, er, a red elephant!”

This time Johnny glanced over at Roy, his lips twitching in glee. “A red one? I thought they were supposed to be pink?”

Roy snorted, grabbing the two cases by his feet and standing up. He waited as his partner helped the older man to his feet and steadied him, before coming up behind him and muttering in his ear. “Only if you drink a fifth of whiskey and chase it down with a six pack.”

Johnny grinned and watched as the man straightened his tie and shrugged into his suit coat; one of the helpful bystanders had been holding it. Once the fairly calm victim started down the sidewalk the two men headed for their squad and stowed the boxes.

“Yeah, that’s what it was. Pink. Why red though….and he was definitely sober. Huh. Hang on a minute, Roy, I’ll be right back.”

Gage took off down the sidewalk in hot pursuit of the salesman, who now seemed to have fully regained his composure and was briskly striding towards a parked car. Johnny drew abreast of him and then moved in front of him and walked backwards for several long steps before apparently getting the information that he wanted. He trotted back to Roy, the same crooked smile lighting up his face.

“He says that he saw the elephant down there in the alley when he was making his sales calls…let’s go check it out.” At Roy’s head shake, Johnny threw up his hands in a beseeching gesture. “Come on, man, where’s your sense of adventure, your curiosity?”

“There are days, Johnny, when my wife will tell you that I have zero of the above qualities. After all of our little animal adventures today, don’t you think that…?” His last words fell on deaf ears, as his apparently adventurous and curious colleague was already high tailing it down the alley behind them, HT swinging from his hand. Roy sighed, slammed and locked the compartment door, and followed. He wasn’t quite willing to admit to himself or his partner that his curiosity WAS shifting into overdrive.

Following the trail of billowing dust left in John’s wake, Roy picked up his pace a little, dodging around garbage cans and the debris strewn about. He passed by an opened gate in the wood slatted fence, and then did an abrupt turnaround when what he had glimpsed out of the corner of his eye registered seconds later in his slow crawling brain.

His open mouthed partner stood, hands on hips, staring at something that Roy thought he had seen but wasn’t quite positive. The way the shift was transpiring, though, he probably shouldn’t doubt anything that he saw or heard. When he cautiously moved closer, his own mouth dropped in disbelief. Yep, definitely what he glimpsed out in the alley. No hallucinations here.

Gage snapped his mouth closed and flicked a hurried, eye popping look at his partner. “Far out Roy, can you believe that?”

He gestured towards the sight in front of them, his expression a mixture of amazement and incredulous disbelief, which enforced the growing feeling for Roy that Johnny had a childlike wonder deep within him that had popped up at least twice now during their training and several weeks of shifts together. He was pretty sure that same look had crossed Gage’s face earlier today when he was holding that skunk cradled protectively within his hands.

DeSoto switched his gaze back to the attraction, and then wondered briefly which of the interesting sights had provoked that look on Gage’s face. Of course there was always the strong possibility that he had been completely reading his associate’s facial expressions wrong this whole time, for there was definitely nothing childlike about one of the creatures. He wasn’t even quite clear himself which of the two sights had him more flabbergasted.

“Yeah, definitely red and really, uh, far out…” Roy agreed finally, inadvertently parroting Johnny’s words, not exactly sure which descriptive phrases would cover what was transpiring in the small backyard.

There was, in fact, a very red elephant standing in front of them. She, or he, was swishing her long trunk in a plastic wading pool, drawing out the water like a vacuum, and then shooting the water up over her back. Standing at her side and scrubbing the tough hide with a long handled brush was a shapely young lady, clad only in a black bikini. The black of the barely there swimwear seemed to enhance the duskiness of her olive skin; her shiny dark hair was drawn up in a loose, messy ponytail high on the back of her head with several loose strands floating about and framing her large, dark eyes. Her eyes were cleverly outlined in black eyeliner that enhanced the exotic slant of them. A slender gold chain encircled her slender, long neck; a bronze stone or amulet of some sort hung from the end and dangled down between.….

Roy swallowed and shifted his eyes guiltily away, thinking that even if his wife believed him about all the odd marks that would be visible on his body by the end of the shift, she would never believe that he was only thinking that this young woman looked an awful like an Egyptian princess, regal and proud. Seriously, Cleopatra maybe? Roy snorted, realizing that EVEN he wouldn’t believe such a tale. The young lady was beautiful, end of story.

Although right now, maybe she didn’t look so proud with the scrub brush held inactive in her hands and giggling at something that Johnny had said. His young colleague had deserted him and had moved to the woman’s side; he was gesticulating wildly with his hands as he told her something, the HT bouncing with each fling of his wrist. Really needed to remove that potentially lethal weapon from his partner’s hands, Roy mused, shaking his head in amused exasperation.

He moved forward to stand by Gage’s side, careful to keep out of range of the moving arms. The lady flashed him a beautiful but very brief smile of acknowledgement before turning her full attention back on Johnny, who had suddenly become tongue tied and tried to stammer out an introduction.

“Uhhh……Roy, this is, Ahhh, Tara, she ummm…” the flustered man took an embarrassed step backward as his charm and vocal skills deserted him, nearly succeeding in giving his partner a black eye as he veered into Roy’s protective space. Roy smoothly bumped the offending elbow down and tried to muster a polite smile as Tara once again favored him with a brilliant flash of teeth but then looked right back at Gage. She seemed confused as to why Johnny had suddenly lost his voice and seemed to have taken leave of his senses.

“Hi Tara….” Roy interceded after a long, awkward pause. He made an abortive grab for the now docile HT but Johnny had actually shuffled behind Roy and then clumsily side stepped around to the front of the elephant; he disappeared quickly around the other side of the huge beast.

“Your friend, he is shy?” Tara asked, moving closer to DeSoto; so close that he could smell her perfume, a tantalizing aroma that hinted of spices and vanilla. He jumped when her shoulder brushed up against his arm. He looked down at her and realized he didn’t have to look far as she was almost as tall as he was, maybe two inches shorter. Much to his chagrin and some damage to his male pride, he also noted that she again was paying no attention to him; she was innocently trying to lean around him to follow the progress of his “shy friend”.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so. Well, maybe…. see, we’ve only been partners for a short time so I don’t really know…” Roy trailed off his own stammering explanation and rolled his eyes as the woman gave up trying to see around him and gracefully squeezed by him, running her hand along the elephant’s hide as she moved. He looked down at the brush now clutched in his own hand and couldn’t fathom how it had ended up in his possession; he backed up several steps and set it inside a grey plastic garbage can that seemed to be housing an assortment of cleaning supplies. After further contemplation, he trotted back even farther so that he was now in front of the elephant once more and could see what was transpiring on the other side.

Johnny had not gone far; he was standing at the great pachyderm’s shoulder with his hand resting flat on the red tinted hide. He was gazing upwards at the animal’s head, watching as she played with the water in the pool. He seemed unconcerned about the fine spray of water that was wetting his hair and darkening his blue shirt; the elephant seemed to have picked up her pace with her water antics. Roy noticed with wry amusement that as long as Gage was looking away from the beautiful woman, he seemed to maintain his professionalism and calm, but curious demeanor. The moment, however, that he shifted his attention back to Tara, his whole manner shifted into embarrassed schoolboy mode; he had apparently finally figured this out as he kept his gaze fixated on the bathing elephant.

Meanwhile, Tara was the one who had become animated. Her hands were waving as she conversed with the dark haired man; she obviously had no qualms about talking with or showing interest in strangers. Every excited movement brought her closer to Johnny, until she was standing so close her loose hair was brushing against the other’s borrowed shirt. Roy watched with avid interest as Gage, without moving his feet, leaned to one side to try and open up the space between them.

Johnny, feeling the slow flush of embarrassment crawling up his neck once again, tilted his body to avoid the swaying tentacles of hair and the intoxicating scent of her perfume. He slid his eyes sideways to look quickly at Tara before finally shifting his feet and bringing his body completely back to a vertical stance. All he needed now, to completely fill his humiliation quota for the day, was to splat face first into the zillion pound animal that seemed to be totally oblivious to the actions of the humans around her.

Because he had had some doubts as to the validity of the man’s story concerning a “red” elephant, he had been surprised to actually see one. After getting over his initial shock concerning that, Roy’s appearance at his side had forced him into the startling realization that he was conversing with a beautiful, no make that, a drop dead gorgeous chick. At that moment every logical thought within his now befuddled brain had evaporated. It had seemed, at least at the time, a safe bet to move away from the enchanting woman and collect his scattered wits. And then she had reappeared at his side less than a minute later, the heady scent of her perfume immediately killing off the remainder of his functioning brain cells. Geesh, he really needed to get his nerves under control if he was going to function as a paramedic, or even continue in his role as a public servant.

Gulping, Gage focused his attention and his wandering thoughts on the red hide in front of him. Of course, getting the chance to be this close to an elephant was pretty incredible, especially after the day they had been having. His face took on the expression that Roy had noticed earlier and he moved gingerly forward so that he was only inches away from the magnificent animal.

“Wild, just wild,” he muttered, sliding his hand down the beast’s side and finally stepping back. He looked at the palm of his hand, wondering what kind of dye or paint they used. Tara was watching him, an appreciative smile adding more beauty to her attractive features.

“You like the animals, then?” She queried softly, a barely noticeable accent touching her voice. At John’s nod, she laid a stopping hand on his arm. “Wait here a moment, please, John.”

“Ok, sure…..”

He turned his head to watch her graceful lope into the garage behind them and smiled; he could handle this, no problem. She returned a minute later with a paper clutched in her hand.

“For you, and your friend, you will try and come to the show? You come to the back and find me and I will get you good seats.”

Johnny tipped the lavishly colored brochure so that he could read it; he grinned even wider and rolled the paper up, brain cells once again all in place and in working order. “You bet, Tara!”

He gave a last pat to the elephant and headed towards Roy, smile still in place. When he reached the other man’s side, he stopped and spun around, pointing to the huge beast.

“Roy, that is some animal!” His gleeful observation was delivered seconds before the elephant tossed her trunk towards them and thoroughly sprayed both men with water. Water sliding down his face, he stared at the elephant in dismay before hesitatingly switching his notice to his wet, ominously silent partner. “Uhhh…”

Roy looked over at his dripping counterpart, noting with a malicious satisfaction that Johnny seemed to have taken the brunt of the shower. “Yeah, yeah it is,” he commented drily. He raised a hand in farewell towards the dark haired woman who seemed to be scolding her mischievous elephant, and then strolled purposely towards the opening in the fence. He looked down as he walked to see the dust on his wet shoes turning to mud. He moved faster, hearing over his right shoulder the slightly panting breaths of his blue shadow trying to keep up with his accelerating pace as they trotted down the narrow alley.

Only when the swinging handi talkie bumped him for the second time did Roy slow his furious gait and swing around, raising his hands to prevent any further nose reconstruction from happening to either one of them. Johnny stopped and took a timid step backwards, lifting his own hands in a placating gesture.

“Now Roy…” he began, his tone implying that the water splatting at their feet wasn’t in any way his fault. “I had no idea that….”

“Gage.” Roy’s clipped one word interruption effectively silenced the forthcoming explanation. He spun on his heel and continued on to their vehicle, noting a sheriff department motorcycle parked at the curb. He paused before climbing in the squad to shake the excess water off his strawberry blond hair and stomp his feet. As he dropped onto the seat, he was thankful that the back of him remained completely dry. He waited, not so patiently, as John went through almost the same process on the other side and then clambered into the cab. Roy paused in mid reach for the mike.

“Did you make us available before you trekked off on your safari?”

“Yeah.”

John didn’t look at Roy as he answered but merely held up the HT still looped around his wrist. He dropped it on the slightly dubious cushion of his shirt on the floor and settled back against the seat, crossing his arms and directing his gaze out the passenger side window.

Silence prevailed for several long minutes as Roy headed the Dodge back to the barn. Sliding the red vehicle to a smooth stop at a changing light, he looked over at the quiet man, his own quick burst of anger and annoyance already dissipating. Judging by the muscle jumping in the clenched, taut jaw of Gage, however, he was obviously still mulling over Roy’s sarcastic words. Not even halfway into the shift, and John had apparently slid back into his customary reticence. Apparently the good vibes he had experienced in the red rocks of Sedona had drained away, taking his good mood and unusual talkativeness with it; Roy felt a pang of remorse that he had been the cause. He was kinda liking this new Johnny with his youthful ideas and bounding enthusiasm.

“Did you get her phone number too?” Roy asked in a bantering tone.

“What?” Johnny turned his head and stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Whose? And whatcha mean by too?”

“Tara’s number, to add to the two other phone numbers you picked up today,” Roy replied, accelerating though the intersection and then merging in with traffic when the lane ended due to construction. He missed the puzzled look his partner shot him.

“No, she didn’t give me her number and I sure didn’t ask her for it. She just liked the fact that I really dig animals, that’s all.” He paused, clearly running the day’s runs through his memory. “Oh, the snake girl….”

He patted the front of his shirt, frowning when he only felt the shape of his pen residing within one of the now damp pockets. Repeating the process with the front pockets of his pants and finding only his knife, he scowled and looked sharply at DeSoto when the older man snickered.

“You forget that you’re wearing my shirt?”

“Oh.”

Johnny reached down and retrieved his own wadded up garment from the floorboards, letting the HT dump onto the mat. Feeling the crinkle of paper under his questing fingers, he grinned triumphantly and plucked the paper from the pocket. “Amber, yeah, but hold on, how did Nancy’s number get on here? Man, that chick, she was into you, Roy, not me!”

“Don’t you remember her borrowing your pen?”

A long sigh was his only answer as the dark haired man fingered the paper uneasily. Silence again reigned within the cab of the moving vehicle for several minutes as Johnny seemed to be gathering his scattered wits and sorting through them. “Uh, maybe, yeah I guess. But where did she get this?”

“From you.” Roy couldn’t help the grin that took over his muscles; Johnny’s only reply to this was a snort of disgust as he apparently figured out what had happened with Nancy and the wayward piece of paper. The younger man drummed his fingers on his window frame and then abandoned that activity for picking up the flyer that was on the seat between them. He looked it over again and held his peace until DeSoto had their vehicle backed in next to the engine.

“You wanna take your family to this? Kinda of a mini circus, with some other animals, but it’s a fall festival. That’s why that elephant was red, Tara was trying for more of a bronze, or red brown color, but got the hue off a little bit.” His voice rose slightly in excitement as he apparently pulled himself from his huff; he offered the paper to his partner after Roy had turned the key off and pulled it from the ignition. Roy accepted the proffered offering and gave it his attention.

“Check our schedule, see if we’re off that day,” he advised, exiting the vehicle and meeting Gage at the back of the truck and handing him back the advertisement. “I’ll check with Jo, see if she has plans already. It looks like fun…….you got all that information from her within that thirty seconds of dialogue? It sure seemed like you were doing most of the talking.”

“Nah, I just asked her some stuff about the elephant, is all. Tara’s a nice kid, ya know? That elephant though, she was pretty far out.” He disappeared around the far side of the engine, whistling something that sounded suspiciously like the Dr. Doolittle tune.

Frozen in place behind the squad, Roy couldn’t help his second eye roll within the brief span of an hour at Johnny’s words. How anybody could call Tara a “kid”, especially his single partner, was completely beyond his comprehension. Then again, he had noticed Gage’s use of ma’am with Nancy; the fallout from that innocently spoken word had flew right by his seemingly oblivious colleague. Either Johnny was hopelessly naïve, seriously awkward, completely clueless, or maybe all of the above with women, or he was involved in a relationship. Yeah, that was it. After all, hadn’t Gage shown up at his own birthday party with Delores on his arm and then mentioned something about spending the day with her tomorrow at the beach? His partner was involved with Delores, end of story. He wasn’t dating or playing the field, and had no interest in anyone else.

Too bad, the older medic mused, he might be firmly attached to his own soul mate, but he did enjoy hearing the exploits, well most of them anyways, of his single and adventurous shift mates. Wait, that couldn’t be right, during Johnny’s own story at the beginning of the shift, hadn’t he mentioned that chick, ah, errr, lady, over in Sedona? And that meandering, almost whispered, tale of a missing roommate and one shared sleeping bag, that didn’t bode well for the assumed monogamous relationship with Delores, the nurse. So, what the heck was this young Romeo up to?

Brow furrowed in bewilderment and curiosity, Roy unfroze his feet, barreled around the engine, and plowed through the locker room door after Johnny. He halted abruptly upon seeing the dark haired man standing immobile in front of his opened locker, an odd expression on his face and his hands full of……Roy stepped closer, bending slightly to see what was clutched in Gage’s hands.

“Circus peanuts?” He queried in surprise, plucking one of the orange, peanut shaped treats out of the extended hands and popping it into his mouth. John scowled and with exaggerated caution deposited the peanuts onto the bench, before pointing mutely towards his locker. DeSoto stepped over the bench and peered into the bottomless pit of the wooden closet. Artfully displayed sideways on a bed of lettuce sat two huge pastries; from his trip to the state fair, Roy recognized the deep fried, cinnamon covered dough as elephant ears. Precisely positioned between the ears were two mounds of black raisins; Roy decided that they represented eyes, as the banana propped carefully upright against the locker wall definitely denoted an elephant’s trunk.

Johnny thunked down on the bench, narrowly missing squashing the marshmallow candy. He sucked in a huge breath of air and stared at the decorated floor of his locker. “How, just how, do they……”

Rubbing his chin in thought, Roy plucked another peanut from the pile and tossed it into his mouth. He nodded as he recalled the motorcycle parked outside of Tara’s house. Apparently there was a mole within the sheriffs’ department; the question remained, however, who in the station was the recipient of the information? Roy’s suspicions were leaning towards Peters, but Johnson was a strong contender. That had been Johnny’s guess earlier, hadn’t it, when he had been showered with tuna and bananas?

“I cannot wait for the permanent engine crew to be assigned here,” Johnny sighed, breaking one of the peanuts in half and studying the soft insides. He held it up and scrutinized it closer, obviously deciding whether or not to try it. “These weird jokes, pranks, whatever, are getting kinda old. Although, they sure are feeding us well this time, beats the jelly in my boots and the painted fingernails….”

He trailed off, dropping the halved peanut back to the bench. He leaned over towards his locker and grabbed one of the pastries, smirking as he bit into the sugary confection. Roy hastily swallowed his mushed peanut, trying not to choke as the laughter threatened to overtake him. He vividly recalled the five red painted fingernails of his partner; they had returned exhausted from three back to back early morning runs and Johnny had collapsed on the sofa in the rec room and succumbed to a deep sleep immediately. Roy had missed the whole prank as he had been sound asleep on his own bunk, so they still didn’t know who had painted the nails on the hand that had dropped onto the floor. Johnny did have a good point on that though – who the heck had been carrying around a bottle of fire engine red nail polish? Either the joke had been premeditated, or it had been one of the married guys who had purchased it for his wife. Then again, maybe one of the single guys had bought it for a girlfriend and couldn’t resist the opportunity to seize the moment. Whatever the case, both medics had conceded that the gag had been a good one and had laughed about it; but only after the startlingly bright color had been removed from Gage’s phalanges and several shifts had passed. Luckily Jo had arrived at the station right after the incident to drop off breakfast for the crew; she had obligingly darted out to the nearest drugstore and picked up some remover. Johnny had retreated, red faced, to the privacy of the locker room to scrub off the paint.

“Uh oh,” Roy grumbled as the now familiar tones began and both men paused to listen as the dispatcher’s emotionless voice rang out with a man trapped call. The address was for one of the streets that housed the cluster of fraternity houses at the University. He recognized the address as one street over from the call where the paramedics had been trapped in the “man trap” with the giggling, bottom pinching freshmen girls; the only relief that Roy felt was based on the fact that it was a man trapped call and shouldn’t involve any of those young ladies.

The disclosure to John that one of the deputies was feeding a crewmate information on their odd runs today was going to have to wait, as well as the burning questions that he had concerning Gage and his dating. And why in the world did Tara had an elephant in her backyard, was that even allowed? Roy heaved his own sigh of frustration and followed the other man out to the garage and their waiting captain.

Ten minutes later the rescue truck rolled to a halt in the driveway of the older, two storied house of the fraternity. Roy’s attempts to open his door were thwarted by one of the students, who was frantically slapping at the door and trying to force his upper torso in through the window at the same time.

“You gotta help Benny, man! Hurry up, hurry up!” His next string of words was delivered so rapidly and quietly that Roy was pretty sure he had heard them wrong. He drew back in the seat as the student’s breath wafted past. Well, it might be still a little early in the day, but there was positively some alcohol involved in this little adventure. He heard the clunk of Johnny’s helmet hitting the roof and tried again to persuade the distraught young man to back away from the door.

After several long seconds of persuasive dialogue, the student finally moved backwards and Roy was able to slide out. He tossed his helmet back through the opened window and when he turned around, Andy the friend had moved forward again and was almost chest to chest with him. Slipping a hand between them, Roy stifled an urge to give the man a push and instead tapped a finger on his shoulder to get his attention.

“Look, if you want us to help your friend you need to step aside and lead us to where your friend is. Okay?”

“Okay, okay, sorry, he’s up on the attic floor of the house.” He whirled and trotted up the short sidewalk that led to the wide porch gracing the front of the frat house.

“Sorry, what did you say was the problem?” Roy asked, ignoring the glare from Johnny as he followed after the student, empty handed. Andy turned his head and garbled out exactly the same words that the medic had thought he had misheard earlier.

Roy suddenly halted as understanding dawned on him and he discovered that he was unable to move his feet and speak at the same time. Trying to keep his voice level was proving to be an impossible feat; in fact, to his ears the strange noise emitting from his mouth sounded ridiculously high as he squeaked out the question he knew he had to ask. “A gerbil stuck where?”


	6. Trumpets and Jokes

****

Roy was shaken out of his dumbfounded preoccupation by the unmistakable sound of wood hitting something; judging by the now familiar, soft grunt that emanated from his partner, that something belonged to a body part. Sure enough, when Roy stepped forward to grab the reinforced metal screen door that Andy had flung open, Johnny was standing behind it. Roy pulled the door towards himself and involuntarily shivered at the icy glare that shot his way from Gage’s slitted, pain filled eyes.

Within a second, DeSoto realized what had happened and knew that once again, he had inadvertently caused bodily harm to his new partner. Johnny had smoothly sidestepped to the right, when Roy had suddenly stopped, to avoid slamming into him; unfortunately, Andy had flung back the security screen door at that exact same moment. The blood once again streaming from Johnny’s nose was the result of that successful encounter.

“DeSoto!” The clipped, one word that shot from Johnny’s mouth capably shut Roy’s own mouth and ended the explanation and apology before it started. Johnny had apparently gotten over Roy’s rather rude tone of voice and sarcastic comments from earlier when Roy had met with the unexpected shower, but like Tara’s not so gray elephant, John obviously had a long memory.

Roy let go of the door, letting it swing shut, and protectively threw his hands up as his seething partner swung the orange box towards his stomach. The thought that John was seeking revenge with their bio-phone box disappeared the moment DeSoto’s swift hands caught the box; Johnny simply released the supposed weapon and raised his now freed hand to his flattened nose.

“Go,” he hissed, reaching around DeSoto, opening the door, and prodding his colleague with the black box clutched in his right hand. They could hear Andy’s voice beseeching them from within the house to “hurry up guys!”

**~eeeEEEeee~**

Fifteen minutes later the paramedics stowed their unneeded gear and crawled into the cab of their truck. Taking a deep breath, Roy started the engine and glanced over at Johnny, who had once again had slumped down in the seat, head tilted back and eyes shut.

“LA squad 51, 10-8 to Rampart Hospital.”

This statement to dispatch got Johnny’s attention; he turned his head a fraction of an inch and gazed fixedly at Roy. “Seeing how we haven’t used any supplies today except for a paper bag, what’s with this little trip?”

“Your nose, your scratches, and my hand,” Roy answered, throwing the vehicle in drive and heading down the street, keeping a close eye on the sudden appearance of male students. They all seemed to be heading for the fraternity house that they had just vacated. Probably explained why, when they had entered the house, it had been deserted. The pledges and the frat brothers had fled the house when Andy had called for help. Judging by all of the alcoholic beverages sitting in ice, and the several kegs that Roy had seen in the living room, they had thought that the police were going to respond to the call. Since the sheriff’s department had not shown up while they were still there, Roy wondered exactly what time they were going to arrive. Or maybe the campus cops had put in an appearance before they got there, but either way the fraternity was going to face repercussions for all that underage drinking going on.

“Oh.” Johnny closed his eyes again but kept his head turned slightly towards his partner. “So what exactly did you think that Andy said? About the gerbil?” His eyes cracked open again as he looked questioningly at him, his voice nasally and sounding like he had a cold. Roy realized with a pang of dismay that Johnny was breathing through his mouth and wondered if this time his nose was broken. Hopefully he wouldn’t end up with a black eye, or worse, two.

“The gerbil…..well, I thought he said….never mind.” Roy shook his head at his strange imagination and kept his own eyes straight ahead on the road. There was no way he was going to vocalize those thoughts, especially to Gage. He would never hear the end of it, especially the way this shift was progressing.

Benny, for all of his friend’s unnecessary panic, had simply had his arm caught in the gerbil’s plastic exercise tube within the cage. It had taken Roy all of three minutes to free the arm from its plastic enclosure. Johnny had stood mutely off to the side, his face carefully expressionless. In fact, he had remained quiet the whole call, holding a napkin filled with ice up to his nose; the ice no doubt pilfered from one of the those galvanized tubs holding various cans and bottles of beer.

Now, John had resumed his silence and turned his head to stare out of the opened window. His hands remained quiet, one draped loosely on the window frame and the other, on the seat space between them, clutching the soggy wad of paper. Roy, lost in his own thoughts, resisted the urge to scratch at the bandage still protecting his clawed hand, and pondered the shift’s runs.

So many animals, so many beautiful women, honestly, what were the odds in that? Plus the fact that Johnny was spot on with his assertion that they hadn’t actually had a medical run yet; that was definitely not normal. Even their first week as certified paramedics, they had responded to at least five or six calls a day. That number was growing as the population of Los Angeles County figured out exactly what paramedics were and what they could do.

Roy bit his lip in puzzlement and squinted his eyes as he drove into the glaring light of the sun that was now beginning its downward descent. He remembered the questions that he wanted to put to his quiet colleague. He debated with himself for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to grill John on his love life while also trying to see if he knew that one of his cop friends was the one who was tipping off the guys at Station 51 about their adventures with the animals this shift.

“Hey Johnny…..” he said, waiting until he had the other man’s attention before continuing on. “Did you notice that motorcycle parked…”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” Johnny interrupted rudely. He didn’t seem inclined to continue with the conversation; Roy pursed his lips and debated on whether he should continue or not. His curiosity won out and he ploughed on.

“Well, who do you think it was? Do you have any idea?”

This time John fully turned his head and stared at him, eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Yes, I know who it is! He’s just yanking my chain, is all.”

“A friend of yours, then?”

“Yep.” Came the direct answer, but Roy noticed that John was biting his lip to hold back a smile. He fought it for a second, then gave up and grinned. “Pretty sure it was one of the guys I used to share an apartment with, Drew.”

“Not Scotty?”

“Nah, I think Scotty stays off the bikes. He was one of my roommates too.”

“Ahhh…” Roy nodded in understanding. That explained how Johnny seemed to know and have an easy camaraderie with quite a few of the guys within the sheriffs’ department. “When was this, back when you were going through the academy?”

“Yeah, plus quite a while after that; I couldn’t really swing the rent on a place by myself. There were four of us that shared the apartment, but there was always a couple more that camped out in the living room on a rotating basis, cops and fire guys. Man, those were some good times…”

“I bet,” Roy mumbled, an edge of jealousy tinting his voice. He wouldn’t trade being married for anybody else’s life, but there were times when he wondered what life would have been like if he and JoAnne had waited just a little longer before tying the knot. Although he really wasn’t sure if he could have shared an apartment with three other guys and frequent squatters; working and sharing quarters with five other guys for three or four days a week was quite enough closeness. Of course John had a completely different personality. Roy had yet to hear of any of his plans for the future, career or personal, and wasn’t quite sure if it was just because he didn’t like to talk about himself, or if it was because he lived for the moment. Probably some of both, he decided.

“Lots of parties, things like that?” He ventured, trying to lead smoothly into Gage’s dating life. “How does that work, when you’re bunking with cops or future cops?”

“No, no, not that bad, geesh Roy, what do you take me for? I suppose it was pretty tame, since we were all working our butts off physically and mentally and didn’t have much time for anything else. Although, I guess you’re right…living with cops does kinda make you second guess everything you do or wanna do.” He paused and looked up at the roof of the cab, as if considering something. “But then again, we did manage to squeeze in a few parties…..”

Johnny looked out the passenger side window again, his mood considerably lighter. He tapped his fingers against the window crank, thinking back to his academy and probie days with amusement. They’d had a lot of fun, him and those other three guys. While their schedules usually differed, they’d still managed to work in a lot of enjoyable downtime, even if it just meant crashing on the floor or sprawled lazily out on their dilapidated furniture in the living room watching a ball game, beer and pizza in hand. Probably the only bad thing about those years was that he actually never got more than six hours of sleep in a row.

He sighed in nostalgia, and realized that Roy was shifting uneasily in his seat and shooting him sneaky, sideways glances. Now what was his problem? His partner looked like a kid that had got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Either he had a guilty conscience about something, or he was gathering courage to ask another question. Must be a harder one this time, because it sure seemed like it was taking him an awful long time to string the words together. Maybe he should just put him out of his misery….

“Go ahead, just ask it.” He commanded, watching Roy closely to see what his reaction was going to be. He wasn’t disappointed as he was treated to a show of varying facial expressions.

“Ask what?”

“Whatever it is you’re just dying to find out the answer to.”

“Uhhh….” Roy’s composure melted as Johnny continued to stare at him, one eyebrow raised in a questioning arc. “I…um….just wanted, just curious, not really any of my business, but I uhh…..”

“Cripes sake, Roy, spit it out!” John blurted, snorting in impatience and inadvertently starting the trickle of blood from his nose once more. The crumpled ball of napkin lying abandoned on the seat beside him was promptly snatched up and pressed back into service. He sighed and tilted his head back on the seat, again.

“Sorry about that,” Roy apologized, feeling a wave of guilt wash over him. “I was just wondering if Delores was your girlfriend, but then you were talking about that woman over in Sedona, so I thought maybe you weren’t together anymore, but then you said you had a date with her in the morning, so maybe you are?”

Johnny giggled and groaned at the same time, producing an odd noise. “Ahhh, Roy, I didn’t know that you cared! Yeah, we were dating for a bit, but now we just hang out together once in a while, like friends, ya know?”

“Friends, right, a female friend…” Roy mused, realizing that he didn’t have any friends of the feminine persuasion. There was his wife, of course, she was undoubtedly his best friend. He’d never even considered the idea of having friends of the opposite sex. Since he and Jo had been together as a couple through at least six years of school, he had not made any lasting friendships with girls during that period. And of course after that he had grudgingly heeded the call of duty and worked exclusively with men during those years overseas. The fire service wasn’t any better; as of yet there weren’t any female firefighters, just women that worked in the administration side. So really, it wasn’t that he was adverse to the idea of having women friends, he’d just never had the opportunity. He smiled, liking the fact that having a younger partner would result in new things being introduced into his life.

Stopping for a red light, he sniffed the air as a suspicious odor wafted upwards. He lifted his left foot and chanced a quick look at the bottom of it before checking the right shoe. He looked over at Gage, who was completely oblivious to Roy’s stealthy movements. In fact, he had resumed his serious contemplation of the scenery outside of the window.

“You smell that?” DeSoto asked, swinging his head back to check the light and shoot a fast glance at the mirrors.

“Can’t smell nothin’. Haven’t been able to since the cat house.” Johnny stated in a matter of fact voice. A smile escaped as he realized what he had said, and he finally tore his attention away from the mesmerizing view and grinned at his partner. Roy smiled back.

“Check your shoes would ya, I’m kinda wondering if we dragged something into the cab with us….” Roy eased his foot onto the gas pedal and followed the flow of traffic, both hands lightly on the wheel.

There was a thunk as John lifted each foot obediently and then dropped it, shaking his head. “Nope, nothing here.”

They were only a half a mile away from the hospital when the radio broke the silence shadowing the cab. Lips set in a grim line, Johnny snatched up the ivory colored mike and acknowledged in a flat voice the child trapped call. He popped the glove box open and grabbed the map, checking the address and relaying the directions to his equally sober comrade.

They pulled up to the construction site, 51’s engine rumbling up seconds later behind them. The foreman, holding the hard hat in place on his head, ran up to Roy’s side of the truck and leaned in. “That’s as far as you can go with the trucks, boys. There’s a kid trapped, says he’s about twenty feet down or so, in an old well or something. Looks like he was messing around back there and the whole thing gave way.”

The paramedics glanced at each other. Roy snatched up the mike, alerted their captain to the situation, than joined Gage at the side of the squad. They pulled out what they thought they needed for the rescue, as well as their medical gear. The two linemen from the engine caught up to them as they trotted towards the back of the new building site and relieved them of some of the equipment.

“How’d you know he was down there?” John asked, as they skirted around the frame of what looked like an apartment building. The man looked back at him, neatly dodging piles of debris without faltering.

“I heard him yelling, nothing wrong with that boy’s lungs, that’s for sure! I didn’t want to get too close, in case the ground gave way.”

“Did he say if he was hurt?” Roy queried, sidestepping a broken two by four and shooting a quick glance over at John to make sure he wasn’t within three feet of him, at least. No sense tempting fate by being in close proximity to him with all these potential hazards strewn about.

“Don’t think so, he just said he was cold.”

“Good, that’s good,” Johnny replied, his mood instantly lighter, and Roy echoed the words in his head.

They finally reached the supposedly caved in area. Immediately noticing a metal object to the right of the circular hole, Roy trod gingerly across the dirt. He squatted down by the opening, observed the hatch cover closer and understood what the kid was trapped in. He peered into the hole; he clicked on the flashlight and looked again.

“Can you hear me down there? This is the fire department.” He yelled.

“Yeah, I’m here…” the disembodied voice floated back up. “Hurry up, would ya? There’s some water coming in here.”

“Ok, be down in a minute. Are you hurt?”

“Nah…”

Roy turned his head and looked back at the cluster of men standing back. “He’s about fifteen feet down; this looks like some kind of metal or cement bomb shelter. I think I’m lying on the roof and this hole was an exit or escape hatch of some kind.”

“What about the water?” Johnny asked, abandoning caution, moving next to him, and uncoiling the rope that had been draped over his shoulder.

“Not sure where that’s coming from,” DeSoto answered, standing up and stepping into the harness that his colleague had just finished rigging. John gave up the completed rope, stepped over to the hole and peered in.

“You want me to go down?” He asked, shooting Roy a quizzical look. Roy snugged the rope around his waist and shook his head.

“Not with that nose of yours. Besides, I’ve got at least one clean uniform back at the station, which is more than I can say for you.” He grinned and sat down, sliding his legs into the opening.

“You’ve got a point there,” Gage acknowledged sheepishly, but still not looking too pleased with the decision. He backed up, sliding the rope through his hands and handing off the remains of the coil to Peters, who passed it back to Gallagher. Johnson, their engineer, accepted the handoff and dropped the excess rope in front of him. He spread his legs and braced himself.

“Go ahead Roy!” He called and the crew began playing out the rope, lowering the medic down into the abandoned shelter.

“About two more feet!” Came the shout from below ground, and the men gave the hemp some more slack.

John moved up on the rope, heard the splash as his partner’s feet apparently hit the rising liquid, and felt the tension in the rope disappear as Roy gained solid ground. Gage crouched by the opening and shone his light downwards. “How deep is the water?”

“It’s about a foot high, looks like there’s some kind of water supply pipe that the cap broke off on. Better tell that foreman to see if he can locate the source….” DeSoto’s voice trailed off as the boy said something. Johnny waited until he felt the lax rope in his hand slide forward, signaling that the harness was moving from Roy to the boy, before looking around for the guy that had directed them to the site.

The foreman, who was now standing several feet to the side of the kneeling paramedic, was shaking his head in disgust. He had obviously heard Roy’s words.

“I can’t believe this……the whole project is gonna be delayed because some idiot built a bomb shelter in his backyard and didn’t bother telling anyone about it. Just peachy.” He threw his hands up in disgust. “Outa have that kid hauled off to jail for trespassing….”

John turned his head so that the man couldn’t see the smile that he was unable to hold back, but also so that he wouldn’t get himself in trouble for speaking the thoughts that were running through his mind. Like maybe the company responsible for the site should put a fence around it, or have some kind of security on the grounds at all times.

“Okay, pull him up!” Roy’s directive sharpened his focus and he quickly rose to his feet.

The embarrassed but unhurt boy was pulled up without incident. Johnny worked the rope off the teenager, who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen. He paused as he gathered up the rigging and glanced up at the gangly red head.

“Hey, you sure you’re ok? That was quite a ways to fall.” Satisfied with the young man’s nod and reply of “fell on some mattresses”, he moved sideways in the dirt and peered within the opening. “Rope coming down, Roy.”

“Yeah, hurry up, would ya?” Several splashes accompanied the older paramedic’s frenzied tone, and Johnny grabbed his flashlight and whipped the beam downwards before he let the rope go. All he could see was Roy bent over, brushing frantically at his legs.

“It’s down, Roy, what are you doing?”

“It’s the cockroaches, man, they’re coming out of the woodwork…I mean the dirt, or maybe those mattresses. As soon as the water started pouring in, the roaches started showing up all over,” explained the boy, and then danced backwards, fluttering his hands in disgust and finally wiping them down his shirt. Gage looked at him, then back down at his partner, who was trying to step into the rope.

“Use both hands,” John muttered, not bothering to hide his amusement. Roy finally gave up on smacking at his legs with his left hand and used both hands to work the rope up his legs. Rope finally secure, he raised his arms and grabbed the line.

“Get me out of here!” He yelled.

The firemen bent their backs to the requested task, slowly drawing the medic up and out of the shelter. Grinning widely, Johnny helped him to his feet but then stepped back, sidestepping several of the escaping roaches. Hands on his hips, he watched as DeSoto clumsily untangled himself from the harness.

Bill Johnson sidled innocently up to the two men, and stomped down on several of the scurrying insects with an exaggerated motion.

“Say Roy, maybe you should catch of couple of these varmints for that contest in Texas. You know, where they ride them? They shore are plenty big e’nuff.” He drawled, waving an imaginary whip above his head. The two linemen came up behind him and snickered.

Roy, finally free of the rope, shook his head and slapped some more at his legs. From the knees down, his pants were soaked. “I was thinking of maybe frying them; Gage here seems to like all things that slither and crawl fried.”

“Nah, crawling things are only good impaled on a stick and shoved in the fire to roast,” Johnny quipped in reply. More laughter erupted from the men; this time it was Peter Gallagher who casually strolled forward and came to a stop by Roy.

He bent down to pick up the rope and began pulling out the knots. Fingers flying, he half turned and looked Roy up and down, then turned and scrutinized John in the same appraising manner. “You boys look like you’ve earned your pay today. Have you had any medical calls today?”

The younger medic snorted. “You should know. Seems like everything we’ve done today has made the rounds of the firehouse gossip trail.” He pointed an accusing finger at Gallagher, and then moved it to encompass the rest of the engine crew.

Peter shrugged. “No clue what ya mean there, Johnny.”

He paused in whatever dialogue he was about to engage in with the now fiercely scowling Gage and instead sidled up to the boy, who had been listening to the exchange of words with avid interest. “Hey kid, how’d you manage to find that? And how did ya fall that far without hurting yourself?”

Tearing his attention away from the paramedics, the teenager kicked at the dirt. “I uh, just saw that cover when they bulldozed it off yesterday. It was getting dark so nobody else noticed it. I had to uncover most of it….like I told him, I fell on some mattresses. I didn’t think it was that far down. Hey, do you think they’re gonna bust me?”

“Larry?” The foreman’s incredulous voice interrupted the wordplay, and everyone turned to look at the man, who was returning from his trailer where he had apparently made some phone calls. “That was you down there? What were you thinking?”

He grabbed the kid by the arm and began dragging him in the direction he had just returned from. Larry balked for a moment, then resignedly gave up and waved at the firemen. “Thanks guys!

“Yeah thanks!” His captor echoed, stopped, and quickly explained his actions when it looked as if a rescue was about to occur. “This is Larry, the boss’s son.”

The entire crew of Station 51 that had been moving en masse towards the two figures immediately stopped and exchanged glances of relief. Captain Hammer strolled over to the man while the rest of his firefighters started towards their vehicles, hauling the equipment that had not been needed. Johnny found himself next to his new partner.

“Glad that wasn’t anything serious,” he vocalized, checking around to see where Gallagher was. Seeing the lineman in front of him, the only piece of rescue gear used coiled around his shoulder, he relaxed and rubbed absently at his swollen nose with his free hand.

“Yeah. That kid, Larry, told me that he accidently broke the end off the pipe; I guess he kinda panicked and was flailing around down there pretty good,” Roy answered, frowning as the water sloshed out his boots as he walked.

“Well, he was in the dark. I guess it would be pretty scary, especially for someone his age,” Gage theorized, coming to a halt by the squad. He unlocked the middle compartment and swung the bio-phone into it. He waited, hand on the top of the door, for Desoto to place his box on the shelf.

“Hell, it was scary for me!” Roy admitted, slapping the black box up and into place. Johnny just grinned in agreement and closed and locked the door. They jumped into the cab and backed out, but not before Gallagher shouted something from his position by the side of the engine. John, half turned in his seat, flapped his left hand out of the window with his stung finger slightly extended. He quickly pulled his hand back in, twisted back around to face the front, and grabbed the mike, making them available.

“What did he say?” He asked.

Roy snorted, not believing what he had just heard. “You didn’t hear what he said and yet you did that with your finger?”

“Did what? I just waved at him,” Gage replied innocently, his lips twitching.

“All he did was remind you that you had cooking duties for dinner; we missed lunch, remember?” DeSoto chastised mildly, thinking that if they ever played poker, he was going to rake in a bundle. His colleague definitely couldn’t keep a straight face when bluffing or engaging in a fib.

“Oh, right. And if I remember correctly, those guys bought the dinner, right?” Johnny smirked, neatly changing the subject by reminding him of the tuna fish that had cascaded out of the locker at his feet. “All I got to do is cook the macaroni and throw the stuff together.”

Silence reined in the truck for several minutes. Roy rubbed at his legs and shuddered, still feeling the crawl of the nasty insects up his legs. It didn’t help that John was bouncing his leg, and casting curious glances in his direction.

“Would you quit that?” Roy snapped in annoyance, his patience thin and his discomfort high with the wet shoes and pants.

“What? Quit what?” This time the question was sincere; Johnny slapped a hand up against his chest in confusion.

“Sorry, sorry,” Roy apologized, berating himself for his lack of self - control. It had been a challenging day but there was no reason to fly off the handle so quickly.

“That’s okay…..you keep feeling those roaches crawling up your legs, don’t cha?”

Now it was Roy’s turn to shift uneasily. “It’s stupid, I know, but yeah, I do…”

“Well, at least they weren’t biting ya,” Johnny snipped, his own hand sliding down his leg to scratch at his ant bites. He bit his lip and settled back into the seat, staring once more out the window at the passing sights but not really seeing them. His legs itched, his finger was numb, his nose hurt, and the scratches littered all over his torso were burning which made him think that some of them were infected. And top it all off, his mood was heading south once more.

Gallagher’s comments hadn’t really bothered him, it was all just fire house humor after all and Gage was sure that he would be able to zing the other fireman back at some time or other before he moved on to another house. It was just all these odd runs that were adding up to a whole lot of weirdness this shift, plus the fact that his partner was all over the place on his mood and comments. He sure was turning out to be a weird guy. That was only increasing the confusion that was dominating the day. Johnny had only been half kidding when he had told Scotty that he was ready to be locked up in a cage……he sighed and tapped the window frame impatiently.

It was getting late in the day and he wondered whether DeSoto was still intent on making it to Rampart, or whether he was just going to give up and head back to the station. He chanced a sideways glance over at Roy but couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. His colleague looked like he was deep in concentration, working his way through the rush hour traffic.

His adrenaline rush had faded away, and the overdose of caffeine that morning was just a long ago memory. He blew out his breath and realized he was tired, plain and simple. They had really done nothing all day, and here he was dragging. He peered sideways at Roy and contemplated forming his thoughts into words. He yawned, and tried to cover the movement with his hand. Too late though, for his keenly observant partner had seen the gesture.

“The day catching up to you?”

“Sure is…don’t know why though.”

“Sometimes that’s just the way it is; you don’t have any major calls but you feel like you’ve been up all night fighting a wildfire. Or that you just spent the last six months sitting in paramedic classes and weren’t smart enough, at least for the first go around, to pick up overtime on the weekends to keep yourself in shape.”

Johnny laughed, instantly understanding that Roy was telling him in a long about way that he was tired too. He sometimes forgot that the man next to him had sat through two sessions of the paramedic training program, and so had been out of the normal routine for a firefighter for quite a while. He hadn’t missed how Roy had been rubbing his shoulders and neck after their last shift; they had spent two long hours hauling hose followed by an hour of cleanup, not once utilizing their paramedic skills. He had been exhausted too, but apparently picking up overtime on almost every weekend during his own classes had paid off. Aside from a headache from too much smoke inhalation, he had fared well and had actually gone hiking after a long nap.

They pulled in front of the station and Roy deftly backed the truck into the bay. He jumped out and slammed his door, disappearing around the side of the engine and into the dorm before Johnny even had a chance to climb completely out of the cab. He shook his head and grinned, knowing exactly how Roy felt. He was sure by the time he hit the locker room, his partner would be in the shower trying to rid himself of the feel of crawling insects all over his body.

The shower was indeed running when he pushed into the room, and he fervently wished he had time to take one himself. But dinner needed to be started, and plus there was that little annoying matter concerning the fact that he didn’t have a clean uniform to change into. He settled for washing up in the sink, relishing the feel of the warm, soapy water on his skin.

Gage had the ingredients for the tuna casserole lined up on the counter when the tones sounded once again for the squad. He threw up his hands in exasperation and tossed the dish towel draped over his shoulder to their surprised engineer, who had just entered the room through the side door.

“Looks like it’s all yours, Bill, try not to mess it up, ok?” He cautioned, not waiting for a reply. He skidded around the corner and barely missed splatting into the side of their truck. Noting the absence of DeSoto, he jumped into the driver’s seat and calmly accepted the address from Hammer, reaching across the back seat and snatching his helmet from the position it usually occupied. He jammed it on his head and secured the strap; when he saw Roy scurrying around the engine he fired up the squad and threw it into drive, foot firmly planted on the brake.

“About time,” he teased, handing over the call slip and smirking at the nasty look he received in reply. Roy grabbed the paper with one hand and finished tucking his shirt in with the other. He studied the address for a moment and opened the glove box to pull out the map as John flicked on the lights and siren and headed out.

“Dallen Farms……that’s a fairly new place, isn’t it? Out by the dam?” Roy asked, flipping the pages and checking the street name.

“Yeah, lots of exotic animals or something like that….” Johnny replied, his tone a mix of dread and curiosity. He rolled his upper lip under his bottom teeth for a moment, his only sign of nervousness, before he relaxed and concentrated on his driving. “Just as long as there are no alligators….crocodiles…...”

~TBC~

 


	7. Hiss and Sting

**__ **

Roy smiled at Johnny’s preoccupation with the thickly hided creatures, although he was wondering himself just what kind of animals they had at this new place. Exotic could mean, well, that just encompassed quite a variety of animals, both cold blooded and warm blooded, didn’t it? Surely it just meant animals that were rare, or unusual for this area?

The paved roads soon gave way to dirt roads, and the dust flew as Johnny skillfully navigated his way around pot holes and the deep ruts grooved into the road. Both missed the turnoff to the unmarked road that they needed to turn on; after shooting past it and going for another mile they realized their error. John carefully backed up and pulled forward several times to turn around on the narrow road, and they traveled back the way they had just journeyed. The road they needed was simply marked with an arrow; they turned down the even narrower street and proceeded cautiously forward. The farm was less than a half mile beyond the missed turn.

Gage turned into the driveway marked by a sign with childish writing that proclaimed “Dallen Farm” in bold, red letters. The weed infested path that led to the farm did nothing to inspire confidence in the paramedics; neither did the several rundown buildings they saw to their right as they drove as far as they could down the rutted driveway. They exited the squad at the same time, glancing warily about as they unlocked and opened up the compartment containing their boxes.

“Looks like they got a lot of work ahead of them,” Johnny spoke softly as he pulled out the bio-phone. Roy wasn’t sure why his voice was barely above a whisper as there was still no sign of human life, or for that matter, animal life.

They trudged up what appeared to be a sidewalk constructed of narrow planks laid sideways. Their footsteps echoed as they followed the path that seemed to lead towards the main dwelling; Johnny paused in uncertainty when the walkway split. One trail veered to the right and appeared to lead to the white clapboard sided house perched almost regally on a grassy knoll while the one that meandered left showed more signs of use and pointed towards a weather worn but sturdy appearing barn. Their decision was made for them when a child appeared from within the depths of the cavernous structure and waved at them, her pigtails bouncing wildly about her head.

“Over here!” She yelled, and the paramedics obediently headed towards the excited girl. As they neared the faded red building, the silence that had unnerved both men only moments earlier was replaced with an increasing volume of odd hissing noises. A puzzled look passed between the two striding men but there was no time for any words because they had reached the clearly agitated young lady.

“You guys are doctors?” She asked, her tone as confused as the expressions on the paramedics’ faces. She planted herself firmly in front of them, her defiant stance indicating there would be no more forward movement until the question was answered.

“No, we’re paramedics with the fire department. We treat people and communicate with this…,” Roy swung the orange box gripped in his hand. “…to the hospital.”

He cut his eyes sideways to peek at Gage, who was shifting uneasily and trying to look beyond the human obstruction in their path. “Miss, is someone hurt in there? Because if so, time is…”

“Huh? Oh, yes, it’s my dad, not really hurt, but,” she interrupted, her bravado trickling away and heading in a different direction as she got a good look at John. She pointed a finger at him. “Definitely not as bad as he looks!”

She giggled and spun around, leading the way. Roy suddenly found himself in the lead; his clearly embarrassed partner had suddenly slowed his urgency to find the victim and assuage his curiosity as to what kind of animal, or animals, was making the peculiar noises. In fact, his hand had strayed up to feel his nose, which was still swollen. He really wasn’t going to be happy when he found that he had raccoon eyes, Roy snickered to himself, forgetting for a moment that he had been the cause, at least for that last mishap.

The trio entered the barn and both men looked around curiously as they followed the now skipping girl through the structure. As far as four legged animals went, all Roy saw were several donkeys standing placidly in a metal poled corral. While he was not an expert on the long eared creatures, he was positive they brayed and did not make the funny noises they had heard earlier. The sound had ceased before they had entered and he had no clue from what animal it had emanated from. Definitely not from the turkey that scurried in front of him, flapped its wings, and darted around him. Johnny did a little fancy footwork as the fowl cut in front of him and disappeared in the same direction it had appeared from.

“Almost there, Dad!” The girl called, heading towards a wide opening, straight ahead of them and flanked by massive sliding doors, that was allowing the last sunlight of the day to filter in and illuminate the rather large pen they were now circling. They followed a dirt and hay strewn aisle that ran alongside the narrow but long enclosure and ended outside of the barn. Here they finally saw the girls’ father; he was lying flat on his back in the pen with his legs and feet out of sight under a cement watering trough.

“A pig pen,” Johnny commented in a droll voice, and stuck his arm through the wide gap between the rails and dropped the trauma box. He placed a hand on the top of the steel pen and vaulted over it, grabbing the black box and wasting no time in slogging through the churned up, muddy ground around the trough near the top of the pen to reach the man.

Roy shook his head at the unorthodox entry and slipped through the gate the child had opened. He bit his lip to keep his chuckle back as she sniffed loudly and pulled the gate closed behind them with a clang.

“They’re hogs, not pigs!”

“Clara,” the trapped man chided softly, wiping a handkerchief across his perspiring, bearded face and smiling up as Gage knelt down beside him. “I’m Claude Childes, and of course you’ve met my little rascal of a daughter there.”

“Mr. Childes, I’m John Gage and that’s my partner Roy DeSoto; we’re paramedics with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. How’d this all happen?” Gage had finished checking Claude’s pulse and was peering under the trough, ignoring the hog that was pushing his snout through the water on the other side of him.

“Well, the hose going into the dern thing sprang a leak, which accounts for all the mess we’re lying in right now. Of course the hogs sure like it wet when it’s this warm…..” he paused, smiling again as he watched Johnny’s face. The paramedic had lifted his head enough from his perusal of the trapped legs to note the enormous, reddish colored swine rubbing his body joyously through the mud about a foot above Mr. Childes’s head. He grinned, enjoying the sight for a moment before he looked back down at Clara’s father.

“He sure does,” he agreed with evident good humor. “So you slipped, are both of your feet hung up under there or just one?”

“Just the right foot, I think. It all went so fast I don’t even recall what happened; I just know that one minute I was standing over the hog trough there and a moment later I was flat on my back with old Gertie over there staring at me.” He waved towards Roy, who had gone around the back of the receptacle and came around to the other side of their victim. A grey hog was sniffing at his shoes with interest and Desoto froze, warily eyeing Gertie.

“She won’t hurt ya,” Clara snorted disdainfully, following the path that Roy had trod and nudging the snuffling beast with denim clad leg. She glared at John, who was now prone in the mud and stretching a questing arm under the cement. “You gonna get my dad out of there?”

“Clara!” This time Claude’s voice was sharp; the young lady retreated backwards a step and crossed her arms and hooked her thumbs defiantly through her overall straps.

“Sorry.”

Johnny ignored the sullen tone of her apology and glanced at her, his cheek flat against the trough as he worked to free the man’s foot. “I’m working on it, Miss Childes; in fact I think I’ve almost got it….”

The girl stepped forward, apparently mollified by the tone and the words that the fireman had spoken to her. Gage had spoken to her as if she was a grownup, and Roy wondered if his counterpart was aware of the effect he seemed to have on women of all ages. The only word that he could come up with right now was charm; the younger man seemed to be able to turn it on and off without any conscious thought.

Mr. Childes let out a quiet exclamation of relief and then followed that sound with a boisterous whoop. He scooted backwards, his mud encrusted legs and work boots following him. Clara danced beside him as he pulled himself out, her grownup manner abandoned as she clapped her hands in glee.

“You okay Daddy?” She asked in concern as her father slowly stretched to his feet.

“Ah yep, little one, right as rain,” he answered, resting a hand on her head and winking at the paramedics. She fiercely hugged his legs and buried her face in his legs.

Roy smiled in contentment and hoped his own daughter would be as feisty but yet caring and family oriented, as she grew older, as this young lady appeared to be. He looked over at Johnny, who by now had extricated his own body from the mud and was standing up. He looked down at the muck covering him, from chin to feet, and shrugged in resignation.

“I guess it’s just one of those days……but hey, at least it’s not my shirt!” he teased Roy slyly, swiping at his chin with his relatively clean left hand and flashing a smile.

DeSoto’s own smile slid away as he contemplated his colleague’s words and realized he was absolutely right. He took a small step backward and immediately regretted it as the calves of his legs met solid resistance. Unable to contain a grunt of surprise and a loud “oooooo”, he went over backwards. The squishy ground rose up to meet him and he impacted the earth with a splat, landing flat on his back with his legs suspended in the air over the object.

A smaller black hog, by a hundred pounds or so, stared at him in what looked like annoyance. Sprawled awkwardly and not feeling any kind of haste in getting to his feet, Roy glared back at the cause of his misfortune. The stare lasted about thirty seconds before the four toed mammal dropped his bristly head, moved out from under Roy’s legs which immediately joined the rest of his body in the wet soil, and commenced rooting around the paramedic’s now completely prone body.

“I guess it was my shoes that were stinking up the squad,” Roy mused softly, as the black hog found no interest in any part of him until it reached his shoes. There the snorting swine snuffled in interest at his left shoe while Gertie was still working on the tantalizing odors emitting from his right one.

“You ok, son?” Mr. Childes hovered at the edge of Roy’s vision, hand outstretched; Roy reluctantly ceased his mental ramblings and accepted the stretched out hand. As he was pulled to his feet, he realized he had done exactly what Johnny had done earlier when he was inches deep in the used cat litter. Completely zoned out, that’s what he had done, and now he understood why his younger counterpart had did it.

“Sorry about that, that little move just caught me by surprise,” DeSoto apologized with a wry grin, substituting a strong mental shake for the physical one he really wanted to execute. He could feel the mud sliding down his back and plopping to the ground behind him. Between that and the very loud sound of the pigs sniffling the ground about his feet, the odd silence that they had encountered outside suddenly seemed welcoming. That brought him to the realization that he still hadn’t located the source of the hissing sound. He looked warily about, searching for the source of the unexplainable noise that had puzzled them both. Perhaps it hadn’t been an animal after all.

A timid giggle began behind the denim clad legs of the man, and the pigtailed head popped out. “Daddy, we can use the hose on them…”

Johnny laughed. “Just show us where, and we’ll take you up on that offer, won’t we Roy?” Silence met his request and the three humans in the corral focused their attention on the oblivious paramedic, who had moved over to the gate and was staring over it in the direction of the heavily reinforced wire fence beyond.

“Uh, Roy?” His partner queried in concern as he sloshed his way over to DeSoto, the farmer and his daughter right behind him. It was the noise of the mud that alerted Roy to their presence and he reluctantly turned his head at the approaching slurping and sucking sounds as boots met resistance.

“Say….” He looked beyond his new partner, ignoring him and addressing Mr. Childes. “Are those ostriches?”

“Of course they are!” Clara declared, squirming past the two adults in front of her and bumping Roy as she lifted the latch, in an obvious hurry to be the first to the ostrich enclosure. She muttered “sorry” in a huffed out breath, clearly anticipating her father’s rebuke before he made it but continued on with her rapid flight to the fence about fifteen feet in front of Roy.

“They are, son, they are,” Mr. Childes confirmed in his soft and melodious voice. “It’s kind of a new thing, hasn’t really caught on yet, but there’s some money to be made in raising these critters.”

He closed and latched the gate firmly behind him and followed John over to the fence as he joined the other two already there. “Be careful now, they’re wicked fast and they do bite….”

His warning came just a second too late as Johnny leapt backwards, shaking a hand. The grey feathered bird regarded him a second, small head cocked quizzically, before snaking her long neck back over the cylindrical rail of the five foot fence. The flustered medic shot a sheepish look at Mr. Childes, who didn’t seem too bothered by the rapid movement or his daughter’s muffled snorts of laughter.

“Well, he, she?” At the farmer’s nod, Johnny continued and tried to explain. “She just startled me with her quickness, but that wasn’t really a bite, more like a peck?”

Clara piped up this time, but her voice was respectful and lacked the scorn she had used previously. “She was looking for food because we sometimes feed them treats by hand. They can nip you pretty good if they feel threatened, but you’re right; it’s like a peck if you have your hand flat. The black feathered ones are the males; the greys are the females…”

Johnny nodded his understanding, still respectfully standing out of reach of the long necked birds. He glanced at Roy, who was gazing in thoughtful consideration at the ten or so feathered monsters who were now clustered along the fence.

Roy finally tore his gaze away. “So, were these the animals that were making the hissing noise that I heard before we came into the barn, Mr. Childes?”

“Aye, that was them. They were a bit upset,” he paused, smiling gently at his daughter, who hung her head and shrugged her shoulders in a move that reminded both paramedics of her father. “They were still a mite perturbed because when she found me stuck under that old feeder, my daughter was yelling and just making a grand ruckus; they don’t like new things too much, I reckon.”

“I wasn’t making that much noise,” Clara mumbled defensively, scuffing a boot clad toe along the dirt. “Plus the dumb birds were still carrying on AFTER I was quiet and out of the barn. I think their little pea brains couldn’t figure out what you were doing lying down and they were mad because, well, they felt threatened by it or something.”

A new thought suddenly occurred to her and she abruptly raised her head. “Daddy, can they feed the birds? And then can I wash them off, the firemen I mean, not the birds!”

“Sure, sure….” Her father replied, shooting another conspiratorial wink at the paramedics and watching fondly as his energetic daughter bounded off in search of hay pellets. “Now speak out gentlemen, surely you have some questions?”

“I’ve read about these ostriches, sir, and they’re fascinating! Are you raising them for the meat, or the feathers, or both?” Roy flushed as he realized his words were stumbling over each other in his excitement to get them out; he was behaving worse than Clara! Noting John’s amusement, which he wasn’t even bothering to hide, he ducked his own head sheepishly and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“All of the above, Mr. DeSoto. It’s a mighty slow process right now, but maybe someday we’ll open the farm to the people of the city and have educational tours and things like that. The place needs some sprucing up and we hope to get some more animals over time, but I reckon my foreman and me can bring it all together.”

Clara let loose another giggle as she breathlessly reappeared, knowing that she was the foreman that her father spoke of. She dumped several compressed hay pellets into Johnny’s outstretched hand and showed him how to feed the feathered birds anxiously dipping their heads over the fence. Palm flat, he did as instructed and watched as one of the birds snatched the pellets out of his hand with a rapid, darting motion.

“Wow,” he breathed, forcing down his own giggle and resisting the urge to shake his hand once again. The fast grab of food had still stung, but he supposed it was something that you got used to with experience; you would just have to be cautious every time and remember what you were dealing with. He had been nipped often enough, and much harder, by the large teeth of horses and other four footed animals in his life, but these humongous birds were on a different planet altogether. “These things don’t fly, do they?”

“Nope,” Clara answered, offering pellets to Roy and watching as he offered up the food and was immediately relieved of it. She grinned and dumped some more into Johnny’s hand. “They don’t fly, but they sure can kick! Right, Daddy?”

“Yep, they can kill a grown man with a backwards kick. They plumb knocked off one of our gates one morning when they felt something was threatening them all. And whew, you have to be careful when you’re picking up their eggs.”

Roy let loose a low whistle, whether impressed or worried Johnny wasn’t quite sure. He reluctantly finished feeding the snatching beaks and stepped away from the fence, pulling at his shirt which seemed to be gluing itself to his skin. The comment about the eggs had caught his attention, though and he ignored his discomfort for the moment. “These eggs, how big are they, Mr. Childes?”

“Well, Mr. Gage, I’d say they were a mite big. They make a mighty big omelet…”the farmer replied, grinning and using his hands to demonstrate the size. He looked at his daughter and hooked a thumb back towards the barn. She nodded in understanding, darted out of sight, and returned cradling a white egg in her hands. She offered it to Johnny, who accepted the melon sized egg gingerly and hefted it to check the weight.

“Incredible! I see what you mean!” He passed the egg over to Roy, who professed his own admiration over the size and weight. As he queried Mr. Childes as to the methods of cooking it, Johnny shifted in physical irritation and pulled at his shirt again.

“Lead the way to the hose, would you Miss Clara?” he asked, grinning and letting her precede him. Roy, after handing the egg back to the older man, followed slowly behind, darting glances over his shoulder at the ostriches that had lost interest in the two legged creatures that fed them and one by one were slowly abandoning their hopeful vigil at the fence.

They followed the child along the heavy fence and then turned at the corner of the barn. The hose bib was located in the middle of the side wall; the ground beneath was cemented and a drain inserted to drain off the excess water.

The men stood shoulder to shoulder but in opposite directions, their dripping sides facing her, and patiently waited while Clara gleefully sprayed them down. While Mr. Childes let her spray the back of Roy’s head, he stopped her from shooting the stream of water into Johnny’s face.

“No, no, child, let Mr. DeSoto do that. I’m thinking that Mr. Gage wouldn’t like the feel of that hitting him full force in the face……son, did you get kicked by a mule?”

Roy turned his head just in time to see the sunburned skin darken a bit more as Johnny flushed in embarrassment. He shook his head slightly and stepped back a little from the approaching spray that Roy was now wielding. He tipped his head back as Roy misted his chin and neck.

“No Sir, more like a door and a rather impatient partner. Although, we have had our fair share of animals showing up today on our calls, ostriches included of course.” He grinned at the farmer, winked at Clara, and turned a slightly less wattage smile on Roy. “Right?”

“Right Johnny,” Roy agreed amicably, placing the hose nozzle in the outstretched hand. Johnny proceeded to shoot the spray down his shirt collar, shrugging his shoulders and pulling both necks away from his skin. He pointed the nozzle at the pig tailed daughter, who was watching the proceedings with a big grin of her own.

She squealed and darted out of range, laughing merrily. “What kind of animals, Mr. Fireman?”

“Oh, let’s see…there was a monkey swinging in the tree, and a very large snake that really liked my friend here, and some weird but pretty intelligent talking parrots that were using the bathroom just like they were supposed to, although they did think that they were police officers….” John offered the now coiled up hose to Mr. Childes, who handed John back the egg, and ignored Roy’s puzzled head tilt at the parrot and police officer reference. “And I can’t forget the red elephant that the lady was washing down in the middle of her backyard…”

“A red elephant, really? Daddy, that’s what we can get for our place! Wouldn’t that be so cool?” Clara ran back to her father, who had hung up the hose and turned off the water. “Please, Daddy?”

Mr. Childes laid his hand on her head, which seemed to be his way of calming her down; she leaned in contentment against his legs. “Now, child, we’ll just take things as they come. Will that be ok?”

“Okay….” She drew out the word, not fully agreeing but showing her understanding. “Can I go tell Momma that? You know, about maybe having an elephant sometime down the road...”

Smiles and looks passed around the adults as she unknowingly used an expression that apparently was used often by her parents. At her father’s nod, Clara darted to the paramedics and shook their hands, a string of “thank you!” slipping out of her mouth as she darted away.

Mr. Childes stomped his now clean but wet boots on the cement pad and looked over at the medics, who were checking out the area around them. “Now fellas, how about coming up to the house for some towels and something hot, or cold, to drink? I feel awfully bad about your uniforms.”

“Thanks Mr. Childes, we appreciate the offer but we need to get back to the station.” Roy shot a look at John, who was nodding his head in agreement. “Don’t worry about our uniforms, sir; it’s a common thing for us to go through several during a shift and sometimes even more.”

“All right then, but you keep the egg and cook it up for the men at your station.” At Roy’s nod, he continued on. “This paramedic thing, is that a new program? Are you still firemen?”

Roy fell in step with the older man as they walked leisurely towards the far corner of the barn, answering the questions. Johnny trailed behind, balancing the egg carefully in one hand and toting the trauma box in the other. He caught snippets of the conversation but didn’t really pay attention. He was more interested in his surroundings, trying to guess what the family was going to do with their property and what other animals they were going to acquire, exotic or otherwise. He hoped the whole thing would work, because it seemed obvious that this was a dream coming true for the man and his daughter.

The three parted ways at the corner; Mr. Childes headed towards the house, pocketing the dollar bill they had paid him for the egg, accepting their argument that they couldn’t accept gifts of any sort. The firemen continued on to their truck. They were silent as they unlocked the middle compartment and pushed the boxes in and grabbed a couple of towels.

“I really hope this works for them,” Johnny finally said, slamming the door with a little more force then necessary. He dragged the towel around his head and opened the passenger door with a weary sigh. He set the ostrich egg down in the middle of the seat, swaddled carefully in the damp towel. “You don’t mind driving, do ya? I feel like I’m going to dissolve into a blob of butter.”

He didn’t wait for an answer but poured himself into the seat, rubbing his arms briskly and draping his second towel around his neck. Roy hopped behind the wheel, dropping his towel over the egg. Seeing that his partner wasn’t making a grab for the mic, he reached out his hand to make them available and paused, hand hovering.

“I think they’ll do just fine.”

Johnny turned slightly in the seat and regarded him thoughtfully. “Yeah, yeah you’re right. They seem pretty determined, you know what I mean?”

He reached out, ignoring the floating hand, and grabbed the mic. “LA, Squad 51, available and returning to quarters…”

“10-4 Squad 51.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. You don’t want to swing by the hospital?” Roy carefully turned the squad around and headed for the road.

“Nope, what’s the point? I already know that I look like I’ve been kicked by a mule, so that must mean I’ve got a couple of shiners. What are they going to be able to do at Rampart, put a steak on them?” Gage paused in his questions, licking his lips. “Steak…..did we have dinner?”

DeSoto shook his head and eased out onto the narrow road. “Nope, and we won’t unless the guys made up your casserole and left some for us.”

“Huh, I don’t relish the thought of eating dried out macaroni. Actually, the thought of eating meat right now kinda makes me, well let’s just say I don’t want to. And this egg here, let’s save it for breakfast.” He patted the cotton swathed white oval affectionately. “How’s your hand?”

“Another good cleaning and a new bandage, and I’ll be fine.” Roy thought for a moment, realizing that meat didn’t sound too appealing to him either. “How about we get some ice cream?”

Johnny flashed him a delighted grin. “That sounds right, best idea you’ve had all day.”

“I really am sorry about your nose, Johnny…..”

“Don’t worry about it, it happens.” Gage dismissed the apology with a wave of his hand. “I wonder what kind of ice cream I should get…vanilla is always good, but strawberry on the other hand…”

~eeeEEEeee~

The cool treat seemed to do the trick, or maybe it was the shower that he finally was able to partake of after they returned to the station. Or maybe even the antibiotic cream that Roy had slathered on his itching scratches. Whatever the reason, he felt almost human as he set his turnouts next to his bunk and dropped down onto the mattress. He rummaged through his clothes that he had dumped earlier onto the bedding, still hopeful that a clean pair of socks was going to show up.

“Just get a pair of mine out of my locker,” Roy whispered, watching the proceedings with one opened eye from his stretched out position on his bed. The way Gage was going through his uniforms, neither one of them was going to have anything clean left by the end of the shift.

“Oh, ok, thanks,” John whispered back, scooping up the garments and stuffing them back in the bag. “What do you want me to do with your shirt?”

“Throw it in the bottom of the locker with mine……” Roy rolled over on his side away from Gage and pulled the covers up around his neck, his thoughts already moving ahead to his days off. He had managed to squeeze in a quick phone call JoAnne while his partner was showering off the various layers of grime he had accumulated during the day. Besides wanting to hear the voice of his lovely wife, he had though it best to warn her of the incoming pile of wet laundry that would be coming her way the next morning. Jo had taken the news quite calmly; in fact, she had simply told him to dump the bag out on top of the washing machine.

He smiled, feeling the warmth wash over him as he pondered about his family. While he had talked with Jo, he had been able to hear Chris in the background, struggling to sound out the words in a children’s book. Their daughter was already tucked in bed and Chris was minutes away from his own bedtime. Jo had put him on the phone to say good night before adding her own words; they were delivered in a quiet voice that broke slightly as she wished him pleasant dreams and then dropped even lower as she said that she couldn’t wait for him to get home.

The smile was still on his lips as he slid into the drowsy prelude to sleep, registering the soft footfalls of Johnny returning to his bunk and sliding beneath the rustling covers. Must have found the socks, because the padding feet had done a little slide around the corner; the shower must have refreshed Gage judging by his much quicker movements. He had dozed off in the squad, head resting against the glass of his closed window and breathing through his mouth, which had fogged up the window. His nose must be still hurting him, probably should have still made that trip to the hospital to have one of the docs there check it out. That and those scratches, some which had definitely been infected, looking red and feeling warm underneath his fingers as he had slapped on the cream. First thing in the morning after the wake up tones, Roy promised himself. They would both get checked out, than head home to their respective ladies and hopefully get some tender loving care.

His eyes flickered open then shut again as he listened to the now familiar, muted roar of the traffic flowing by on the 405 behind the station. It was a nice way to slide into slumber, thinking about his family and hearing the different rumbles of five other men in various stages of sleep. He couldn’t quite pick out each individual sleeper yet, like who instantly began snoring the moment their head hit the pillow, or who mumbled as if carrying on a lengthy conversation. Of course by the time he had each man figured out, the permanent engine crew would probably be in residence. Johnny was the restless one, often throwing off covers as he changed positions. But he settled down eventually, usually ending up on his back with his arm thrown up over his eyes as if to block out the world around him.

About an hour later Roy’s deep sleep was broken by an odd sound emanating from the man next to him. By the time he had shaken off the thick cobwebs of sleep and was able to focus his eyes in a hazy squint, Johnny had stopped thrashing his arms about and was on his way to the locker room. Roy yawned and sat up, and then let his curiosity win out. He followed Gage, stumbling a bit as he yanked up his suspenders.

Johnny was standing at the middle sink, his head bent as he looked at the hand he was holding under a stream of water. Coming out of the aisle between the lockers, DeSoto moved unhurriedly to his left side, his mouth stretched wide in another yawn. He glanced at his new partner and snapped his mouth closed with his own odd noise issuing forth.

“Johnny!” He squeaked, throwing out a hand. “Your nose!”

“Huh?” John looked in the mirror and let out a four letter word that Roy had never heard before, at the same time grabbing for a paper towel out of the dispenser. He swiped at his nose in a sideways move, and Roy, following the path of the flying missile with his now wide opened eyes, promptly stomped the life out of the arachnid. He grabbed up the abandoned paper towel, turned off the water Johnny had left running, and scooped up the remains of the scorpion from the floor and his rubber boot. He deposited it in the trash and joined him on the bench.

Johnny stared at him with a dazed expression and shook his head. “Just an unbelievable day, ya know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I’ve gotta give you that. Did he sting you?”

The dark haired man held up his right hand, middle finger extended. “Same finger, opposite hand…he must have been holding onto to something in my laundry and crawled out on the bed when I was taking a shower. The sting woke me up and I whipped my hand up; he must have flown onto my nose and hitched a ride here…didn’t get me there, though…” he subsided into a pensive silence, rubbing the finger and looking miserable.

Roy shook his head in sympathy, not even wanting to visualize what John’s nose might look like if that thing had injected his venom into the already swollen proboscis. That was a sight he wasn’t going to forget anytime soon, that was for sure! The tan bark scorpion, pinchers pointed down at the tip of Gage’s nose and tail curled upwards, perching there like an explorer ready to strike his flag into the earth.

“Man! I’m gonna have some nightmares tonight!” Johnny interrupted his musings with an annoyed exclamation, shaking off his moody silence and rising to his feet. He cocked his head hopefully. “You have any aspirin?”

“Yeah, pretty sure that I do, let me check….”

Aspirin delivered and ingested, throbbing finger held under cold water for a few moments, and both men made their way back to bed with a slow, almost dragging pace. The tones sounded before they had a chance to scrutinize Johnny’s bed for further creepy crawlies and they exited the dorm much quicker than they had entered it.

Johnny, still yanking up his suspenders, shrugged on his still damp blue jacket over his water splashed t-shirt and traced a finger across the map. His mouth was tilted into a downward pout as he scrambled into the squad.

“I meant what I said earlier about crawling around in the storm drains….” He muttered, slapping on his helmet but letting the chin strap dangle. He shot Roy a ferocious glare, snatching the call slip from him.

“I heard you,” the older man acknowledged, flipping the lights and sirens on as they headed down the driveway. He also knew even though they had only been partners for a very short time that Gage would do whatever it took to complete the rescue. Even if that meant wading neck deep through the steaming sewers in search of the lost child, fervently hoping that no alligators were stealthily swimming alongside of them….

~TBC~

_A/N – sorry about the second scorpion in the story, but that happened to me around September of last year, and I just had to get this unbelievable tale in there (no pun intended!) Only I was by myself, and wondered where I had flung the little monster as I headed for the bathroom. After a brief, horrifying second of realizing what was perched on my nose as I glanced into the mirror, I grabbed a hand towel and knocked the blasted thing off into the sink, where it met its demise in a very squashy manner._


	8. Quack and Scurry

**__ **

The noisy sounds of the city had muted to a dull roar; traffic was lighter at this time of night and while the metropolis never actually slept, it at least enjoyed a nap for a few hours _. Something I really need about now_ , Johnny thought wistfully, _as long as it’s uninterrupted_. He rolled down his window, enjoying the cooler night breeze and trying to ignore the pain in his finger. He leaned toward the air, letting it ruffle his hair and wondering if this was what dogs felt like when they had their heads hanging out. Yawning, he pulled back into the safety of the cab just in time; Roy took the corner with tires screeching and he had to grip the window frame to keep from doing a hard slide sideways.

He glared at his partner, who looked back at him innocently before flicking his eyes back to the road. “Trying to even out the tread on the tires?”

“No, just didn’t want to clean up drool from the paint job…” Roy shot back, working hard to keep his expression straight.

“Very funny,” John retorted, but his own smile appeared when he realized that Roy had been thinking about dogs too. They were probably going to end up at the pound before this day was over, gobbling up kibble and lifting legs to mark off their territory.....

The squad led the way through a new housing development; they veered off the main road and headed down an access road towards a brilliant cluster of rotating lights. The paramedics looked at each other but didn’t say anything as they joined the group of emergency vehicles parked haphazardly. They scrambled down the cement side of the channel near the supposedly secured iron gated opening that led into the underground storm drain.

“Vince Howard…” the older, booted sheriff’s deputy said, breaking away from the five or six men congregated near the tunnel and approaching them with hand outstretched. They exchanged quick introductions, including Captain Hammer as he joined them.

“We have a young man and his sister, who unbeknownst to their folks, left their house less than an hour ago to follow a duck. Apparently this duck is the neighborhood “pet” and just had, er, ducklings and was leading them into the tunnel here. Mr. Larry and Miss Valerie Graby, ages 8 and 7, crawled out of a window and followed the feathered family down here. A neighbor happened to be standing by her window and saw them disappear over the ridge, called us, and here we are.”

“You sure they went in there?” Roy asked, staring in disbelief towards the dark entrance. For an answer the deputy played his flashlight over the wide expanse of concrete; there were faint, muddy tracks leading to the gate that were still recognizable as the small footprints of children. The distinctive webbed marks of the duck and her brood were not quite as visible but could still be seen; most of them had been obliterated by the kids’ scuffing feet.

Nodding in affirmation, DeSoto started for the forbidding hole with 51’s crew right behind him; Howard and Hammer were still conversing as they walked. There were a few more minutes of discussion between the various members of the represented departments, including an older man from the Public Works Department who was scrutinizing a blueprint.

Hammer broke away from Vince Howard and approached his crew, pointing at DeSoto. “”We’ll send you and John in, along with the deputy. There’s only one split of the tunnel; if you’re unable to follow the tracks at the split, go to the right and radio back so we can send a team in to go to the left.”

The paramedics trotted over to the gate, shed their bulky turnout coats, and slid thru the narrow gap where the bars had been peeled back like a banana. Vince handed the coats back to them and followed them through, holding his gun belt in his hand. They waited a moment while he buckled it back on, observing the graffiti sprayed about the sloping walls and the trash strewn across the puddled ground.

“Probably didn’t go too far,” Johnny thought out aloud, fanning his beam of light along the floor and pointing it to the still wet footprints of children. He ran a finger under the chin strap of his helmet and loosened it. “I mean, how far is that duck gonna go anyways?”

“I agree,” Howard said, following Gage as the two fireman split apart, one on each side of the curved expanse. “Why would the blasted thing even go this far? There’s not much water in here right now, at least until it rains again.”

Their footsteps echoed as they walked, lights crisscrossing in random patterns. Roy rubbed his hand across his jaw, eyeing the beer cans, cigarette butts, and other unmentionable items that were clear signs of human presence. He understood now why the sheriffs’ deputy was accompanying them. They followed the bend of the tunnel as it veered gradually right; here the water was deeper in the middle. So much for the deputy’s theory about the lack of water….. They had to watch their steps too; green algae now extended away from the questionable looking water and made walking slick.

Except for their occasional calls to the children, the men remained silent, each lost in their own thoughts but paying close attention to their surroundings. DeSoto couldn’t help but wonder why the kids had been able to crawl out their window at this time of night without being heard or observed. Just the thought of it made him want to call home to check on his own children even though he knew that Jo had them tucked safely into bed and would be sound asleep in the master bedroom just down the hallway.

His attention wavered for the briefest moment as he glanced over at Gage, who was muttering something indecipherable and doing a clumsy jig in his heavy boots. His own feet slid on the slippery surface and he caught himself just in time; he gingerly gained his balance and withdrew a wet foot from the stagnant water. He stepped away from the knee deep water, shaking the foot.

Johnny’s light flashed over him. “You okay Roy?”

“Just dandy,” Roy growled in answer, resuming his careful walk forward. “What were YOU doing over there?”

“Rats,” came the terse reply.

“Rats what?” He skirted around a mound of questionable looking debris and tried to see the tracks they were trying to follow. The wetter it got, the less evidence there was of the kids and their flat footed, waddling friend.

“Rats, real rats…..things with skinny tails and beady little eyes?” Johnny’s voice was strained and didn’t match his light hearted words.

Roy quickly shone his beam across the water; sure enough, he caught sight of a hairless tail disappearing into the round drainage hole above his partner’s head. He gulped, flicking the light in front of Gage and illuminating Vince Howard. Hand resting on the baton in his belt, the officer looked like he was prepared to do battle to the death with a pack of four legged rodents. His face was set into a mask of grimness, with his lips set into a determined line that matched the look on John’s face.

The fast pace that the three men had been moving at suddenly picked up even more and their voices echoed throughout the tunnel. An answering call stopped them; the older paramedic held up an unnecessary hand splayed in a “stop” gesture and shouted again.

“Here, over here!”

Relief flooded over Roy as they heard the acknowledgement and surged forward. Johnny and Vince crossed through the putrid water to join him and within seconds all three of their brilliant beams converged and picked up the figures of the children crouched against the damp wall.

“Hey,” Roy called softly, approaching slowly and trying to be as non-threatening as possible. “I’m Roy, and this is my partner John. We’re firemen, and this other guy here is a police officer. Are you guys okay?”

“I want to see some identification,” Valerie Graby declared, straightening up against the wall. An amused snort came from Gage’s direction at the haughty order, or maybe it was from the sudden appearance of the yellow bill that popped up from the top of the girl’s robe. A white head and long neck followed as the momma duck started struggling against the confinement.

Roy leapt forward just in time to catch a feather flying armful of agitated duck. His equally quick partner wrangled the flapping wings down, relieved him of the frenzied fowl, and swaddled her in his turnout coat. His loosened helmet clanked to the ground. DeSoto jumped, this time in the opposite direction, from the unexpected noise but more importantly away from the snapping beak and the increasingly raising volume of the outraged honks that suddenly erupted out of the arm of Johnny’s coat.

The dark haired man quickly jerked up the escape route, effectively shaking down the duck enough to twist the end of the sleeve closed. He tucked the whole bundle under his left arm, keeping his left hand securely on the closed off sleeve. He looked triumphantly over at his new partner, wide smile in place, just in time to see that the kids had sprung into action; they were busy depositing two yellow, downy fuzzed chicks into his helmet.

“Now wait just a doggone minute,” Gage sputtered, his self-pride short lived. Now it was Roy’s turn to grin as his counterpart waved his free hand in frustration, unable to do anything because of the awkward, still squirming bundle under his arm.

“Looks like you kids have the situation under control,” Howard observed drily, shaking his head in disbelief but smiling. He was looking at Johnny as he spoke; the target of his comment shot him a dirty look and deliberately turned his attention back to the “under eighteen” children. He softened his glare as he regained his levity at the situation.

“Ya know, there’s some people out there that are plenty worried about you two,” he said, his voice quiet and soothing. “What do you say about getting out of here?”

It was the boy this time that responded; he stepped forward and shyly answered Johnny, but turned his head and blinked up at the deputy through long black lashes as he did. “Yes, can we go home now?”

“Absolutely,” Vince replied. “Do you need a ride?”

He held out his arms and Larry darted forward eagerly, forgetting his hesitancy. Vince hoisted him up on his hip and signaled the paramedics with a head jerk in the direction of the unsecure entrance.

Roy, who was notifying the group waiting outside of their progress, dropped the HT into his voluminous pocket. Valerie, noticing this, immediately went to Gage and thrust his helmet at him.

“Here, carry this, please; it will make Gertrude feel better.”

“Gertrude?” Johnny queried, reluctantly accepting the proffered hat that was now chirping incessantly. “The duck’s name is Gertrude?”

“Yes, after my teacher at school. Mrs. Long is very soft and squishy, and when she talks, she sounds like she is quacking!” Laughter erupted at the young girl’s earnest statement; she giggled and held up her arms to Roy. He obediently picked her up and set his helmet down on her tousled curls.

The heavily laden trio navigated carefully back towards the exit, with John bringing up the rear. He had given his light to Vince and was trying to keep his awkward load balanced; although the mother duck had ceased her struggles apparently due to the reassuring noises emanating from her offspring, her chicks were not so still. Johnny, holding the helmet by the brim, was focusing most of his attention on tipping the temporary duck transport back and forth to keep the curious ducklings from scrambling out.

“Way too many X chromosomes floating around here today….” he muttered, falling back a little when he had to stop to shift the increasingly heavy bundle under his arm. He scowled as what little light he had moved away with the two men and hastily finished his rearrangement. He strolled forward quickly and promptly lost his footing on the slick surface.

“Duck, duck, duck!” He exclaimed, as boot clad feet went out from under him and he slid ungracefully, boots first, into the smelly, stagnant water. He remained upright, sitting in the oily liquid with his legs extended in front of him and his right arm still extended, balancing the helmet. He stared for a moment at the chicks, safely ensconced in their carrier and trilling happily at him; the bundle under his arm was half immersed. He could feel the thing moving around, so he knew she was okay. Couldn’t say the same thing about his coat, though, or anything he was wearing from the waist down……

“Johnny?” The concerned call echoed back to him and he bit back the snarl that almost made it out of his throat. With no free hands to balance, he had to do an awkward half roll to his knees and use his muscles to hoist himself upright. He stood there, the dark water streaming from his bunker pants, as Roy’s light illuminated the cesspool and the oblivious fowl he was clutching.

“Ah...you okay there?” The older man asked, prudently stopping a safe distance away when he saw the look that crossed Johnny’s face. Valerie twisted in his arms and smothered a giggle at the soggy sight.

“He said the duck word,” she whispered, and giggled some more. “Three duck words he said, right in a row. My daddy said that duck word when I tried to fly off the roof and almost missed the pool. Why do daddies shout that word? And why does that fireman have eyes with rings around them?”

“And little pitchers have big mouths,” John hissed under his breath, annoyed with himself for having shouted any words out loud. Well, at least he hadn’t actually used “bad” words, even though they had certainly crossed his mind! It was just all very unprofessional, stupid, and completely uncharacteristic….and daddies, what was that supposed to mean? Was he a duck daddy now? It was bad enough to be suddenly joining the ranks of fatherhood, but having to be a duck daddy with raccoon eyes? Blast Roy anyways…he wasn’t really blaming him because they all had been just dumb accidents, but still….

He glanced sideways and down at his suspender strap which was dangling upon his left forearm. He missed the startled look Roy shot him at the barely heard and wrongly spoken idiom and the amused twist of lips that followed. Gage was too concerned about the horrifying fact that he couldn’t pull the strap back up; the other side was sure to follow and that meant there was a strong possibility his pants would end up around his ankles. He hadn’t done much sleeping on that trip to Sedona, Arizona but he had also not wasted much time eating either. The end result was a bit of a weight loss, enough to guarantee a gravity sliding loss of dignity.

“I’m peachy, just peachy,” he replied, remembering to keep his tone carefully even in deference to the young, listening ears. He sloshed in the direction of the waiting, Cheshire cat grinning fireman and passed him with steady steps, keeping his eyes sedately on the uneven terrain ahead. Roy spun around and stayed behind him this time, trying to hold back his laughter at the unbelievable sight. It took him only a few seconds to realize why his young comrade was taking long strides with his right shoulder hitched upwards. He hurried ahead and reached out a hand to pull up the wayward strap. Unfortunately for him, however, he didn’t warn Gage of his intentions.

“What?” John yelled in surprise as the strap magically went up on his shoulder while he was still walking; with Roy’s fingers still on the back of the suspender, he came up hard against the webbing and the harsh stop propelled him backwards. His head, of course, banged against Roy’s nose in a bizarre repetition of the scene that had played out early in their shift; only this time their roles were reversed.

“Are you going to say to say the duck word too, Mister?” Valerie queried, as Roy staggered back and lifted a hand to his nose. John whirled and put out a hand to help steady him; it was a nice but ludicrous gesture since he was still gripping the bird laden hat. Roy fought back his laughter at the whole situation and took a steadying breath to get the pain and the mirth under control. He chanced a flick of eyeballs towards Gage and was relieved to see him not laughing. In fact, he was just standing there with a strange look on his face.

“I guess that makes us pretty even, huh?” Roy asked, shifting the girl a bit and removing his hand away from his throbbing nose. Johnny stared at him a moment before shaking himself and grinning in his lopsided way. His eyes seemed to be focused on something beyond Roy however, and he seemed confused.

“Umm, sure, let’s go, okay?” He half turned, waiting for his partner to catch up and then followed merely a half step behind, almost pushing Roy forward with the helmet. DeSoto thought he seemed uneasy or anxious but he wasn’t sure as he couldn’t yet understand or follow the fast mood changes.

They followed the bend around and saw Vince waiting for them at the gate; the boy had apparently been delivered to his parents. He raised a questioning eyebrow at their tardiness but helped relieve Roy of the young lady. She in turn turned to the designated duck carrier and held out her cupped palms, her eyes saucer large and her lips trembling as she hopefully awaited the delivery of the ducklings.

“Please?” Her voice was anxious and DeSoto glanced at Gage to see how she was affecting him. The younger man appeared to be even more distracted then he had been a moment ago and looked to be completely unfazed by the very precocious young lady’s plea. Maybe it was just a father thing that only affected men with daughters, Roy thought with a mental shrug.

Between the three men, they somehow managed to get Valerie through the opening and into the arms of her father. Vince squeezed through next, followed by the mother duck and then her babies. John slid out, grabbed Roy’s coat before he had it completely off, and practically dragged him through by the arm.

“What’s the hurry?” Roy huffed, yanking his t-shirt off a rough edge of the bar where it had snagged. Johnny just shook his head and handed him back the coat. He kept glancing into the darkness beyond them, effectively transferring his nervousness across to the older man. Roy had a hard time keeping up with him as he scrambled up the side of the drainage basin, nimble as a gazelle in the semi darkness.

Johnny shifted from foot to foot, one hand holding the chrome bar on the top of the squad as he waited impatiently for Captain Hammer to ascend the slope. He accepted his coat and helmet with a mumbled acknowledgement of thanks; their captain nodded in response and headed off towards the engine and the rest of his crew that were already gathered around it.

The two paramedics turned to watch as the parents carried off their blanket wrapped offspring. Striding behind them were two sheriff deputies, each carrying their own wrapped parcel from which issued the quacking noises of their two legged friends.

Roy grinned and gave Johnny’s shoulder a friendly bump. “One of those deputies looks like your friend from that cat rescue, Scotty was it?”

Gage responded with a noncommittal noise; he was holding up his turnout coat and peering at the inside of it. He moved around to the front of the squad and held the stiff material up to the headlight.

“Ah, crap!” he exclaimed, thrusting the coat away in a rapid, disgusted motion and holding it at arm’s length.

“Duck crap,” Roy guessed correctly, his smile fading as he took in the sight illuminated in the light. Gage looked pretty pitiful, standing there in his thoroughly soaked bunker pants, dirty t-shirt half untucked and suspender straps twisted and crooked. His shoulders were slumped forward in dejection as he turned the coat in his hands and gazed at it. He was surprised when his new partner finally lifted his head and smiled, lifting one shoulder in a resigned shrug.

“Ah well, it’ll all rinse off. I guess anything for a kid and her feathered friends, right?”

“Right, right,” Roy agreed affably as John scuffed past him in the dirt, apparently heading for the reel line and a fast rinse off. “Hey, wait a second…”

“What had you so bugged back there when we were almost out of the tunnel?” Roy asked curiously.

“Ah, that,” Johnny shrugged both shoulders this time. He paused and a sheepish look flitted across his face. “I think maybe I shouldn’t have watched that movie that came out this summer; you know the one with all the rats in it?” (1)

“Nah, no idea…haven’t been to a movie since the kids came along, and I don’t think that would be our first choice if we did get the chance to go to one,” DeSoto replied with a shake of his head; his eyes widened as something occurred to him. “Wait; did you take a date to see a movie about rats?”

John shook his own head vehemently. “It was her idea! She really digs those kinds of flicks!”

Roy couldn’t help an eye roll at the thought of JoAnne requesting to see a rat movie; although, if he really was being honest with himself it wasn’t his idea of a good film either. “Ok, so what do the rats have to do with your speedy departure back there?”

The other man looked back over his shoulder to see where their crewmates were and moved a step closer. “It’s just that I could have sworn that I saw, well, a huge pack of rats descending on us after I crawled out of the water.”

“A huge pack of rats…” Roy repeated slowly as his mind screamed the impossibility of that but his memory immediately brought back in living color the lone rat that had scurried out of sight and John’s use of the plural “rats” in the tunnel; his partner had obviously seen more than one running about. Maybe the one that Roy had seen was a scout, and had gone off to fetch his naked tail buddies and plan an attack on the humans invading their territory…

“Thanks a lot,” he muttered as Johnny sauntered merrily off, apparently having easily transferred his paranoia over to his new partner. Roy swiped a hand across his suddenly sweating brow and gave the front tire an unobtrusive kick. He didn’t know if he was irritated with Gage or with himself for being so wildly imaginative. Probably both…..

He casually leaned against the fender and rested his arm on the hood, flexing his jaw to work out his sudden stress. He watched as Peters, with obvious glee, sprayed off the soiled coat and also hit the paramedic with the fine stream, even though John was stiff arming the garment well away from his body. DeSoto grinned as Johnny held his ground, his body not moving but his mouth making up for it. He couldn’t read his lips, but he was sure that Gage was giving the laughing lineman quite an earful.

Roy smiled even wider, forgetting his annoyance, as the battle of wills continued. Somehow Gallagher had sneaked into the mix and was rewarded with a face full of wet coat as Johnny winged it across the few feet separating them and scored a direct hit. The war abruptly ceased when Hammer appeared from behind the engine and the crew easily choreographed their playfulness into unrehearsed, job related moves. Johnny simply stepped back and half raised his arms; Peters aimed the hose at the unknown filth on his bunker pants while Gallagher nonchalantly mimicked a coat rack, holding the dripping turnout up in the air by his fingertips. Their captain looked pointedly at each of them with a rather bland expression and then crossed his arms.

“Are you boys about done here?”

“Ah, sure Cap, just getting some of this stuff off before it dries and uh, you know, stiffens up the fabric…” Gage’s voice was suspiciously rising and Roy, who had moved closer to hear, was pretty sure he was having a hard time containing his laughter. His guess was confirmed when Johnny spun around to have his rear blasted with water and his shoulders were shaking. Even when Peters upped the water pressure and nearly catapulted the shaking paramedic off the edge of the embankment, John was still grinning when he caught his balance and whirled back around.

“What a bunch of nuts,” Roy mused, bringing a hand up to cover his own smile, not really sure how Hammer was going to react. Their captain waved a hand in a dismissive motion, his mouth quirking upwards, and the crew scrambled in different directions. Johnny loped over to Roy, whipping the coat back and forth in an exaggerated motion to rid the coat of the excess water.

“Good rescue, huh?” He questioned with a delighted smirk, flinging the dripping garment into the still opened compartment on the squad. DeSoto nodded, resisting the sudden urge to slump into his own sodden pile of relaxation as sudden weariness threatened to overtake him.

“Yeah, that it was,” he agreed, watching with half lidded eyes as Johnny used his knee to firmly close the door and listened to John’s snicker of amusement as the movement left a wet imprint on the metal. His dark haired partner turned the key in the lock and half turned, his impish smile not hiding his shift ravaged face and the creases of fatigue etched in his boyish features.

“You know what the best part of this run was, Roy, aside from the obvious with the kids?”

“No…..” He couldn’t figure out where Gage was going with this, and if he was being honest, he didn’t really care. It was late, he was tired, and he could only hope that this guy wasn’t going to turn into some kind of night owl – where the later it got the more energy he gave off. Perhaps the adrenaline rush hadn’t dissipated yet; yeah, that had to be it because the kid looked as tired as he felt.

He forced himself to raise his head and lifted an enquiring eyebrow as he realized Johnny was staring at him. An unreadable emotion flicked across the younger man’s face and disappeared as fast as it had materialized. Roy didn’t even have time to wonder what it had been before Johnny had the passenger door opened and performed a graceless drop onto the seat.

“Come on, partner, let’s go home!”

“Wait, what was the best part of this run?” Curiosity burst in him and Roy realized that he really did want to know what Gage was thinking. He pushed the door closed and leaned in, resting his hands on the window frame.

“Well, what do ya think? No alligators, man, no alligators!”

Roy groaned in disbelief and pulled backwards out of the cab but couldn’t help a snort of mirth as he withdrew. He had the oddest feeling that this new partnership was going to be anything but dull……

~eeeEEEeee~

TBC

 

 

 

A/N - (1) Do you recall the movies “Willard” and “Ben”, which came out in the summers of 1971 and 1972? I still recall how scary those movies were, even though I saw them only once and that was probably years later on television.

 

 


	9. Buzzes and Runaways

****

****

Roy pulled out, catching a glimpse of the children, the ducks, parents, and the deputies in his mirror before the darkness swallowed them. He glanced over at Johnny, who seemed to be viewing the same sight in the passenger mirror.

“So,” Roy began, accelerating once he was out of the residential area and heading for the on ramp to the freeway. “What’s your fascination with the alligators?”

“Huh? Oh, that, well, nothing really…just,” he paused, thinking about it for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe because we were talking about the coats, and what could get through that fabric, and it sorta stuck with me.”

“Right,” his partner agreed, remembering that strange conversation outside of the house with all of the cats. He tapped the wheel with his fingertips, considering all of the weird events of the shift, and decided it was best not to even think about it. He rubbed absently at the scratches on his hand, feeling the slight warmth emanating from them and realized they were probably infected. A trip to Rampart was required, then, to get them, and the ones crisscrossing his partner, taken care of.

Johnny, for once, was sitting motionless on the bench seat, his eyes half shuttered and his relaxed pose indicative of either deep thought or a step away from slumber. Roy felt tired as well, at least in body. His mind was running at full throttle in a variety of different directions. He felt a wave of contentment wash over him at the results of that last rescue, and wished fervently that they all could turn out that well.

His pleasant musings were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a stomach protesting. Satisfied that it wasn’t his, DeSoto let a grin escape and chuckled.

“Are you hungry already?”

“I’m a growing boy, Roy!” Johnny protested good naturedly, rubbing a hand across his rumbling belly. “I’m always hungry!”

“Yeah, I can see that. I have to admit, though, it seems like we ate that ice cream hours ago. I’m a bit hungry myself.”

A sudden idea popped into Roy’s head and he looked at the exit that was fast approaching. Signaling, he moved the squad over into the right lane and took the off ramp. He was pretty sure there was a little diner that stayed open twenty four hours that was located fairly close to the station. If they were lucky, they might be able to order something, have it boxed up, and maybe even have the chance to eat it before they got called out again. The Rampart cafeteria was closed; otherwise he would just head over there and get both problems solved in one efficient shot.

 “Well, then, there’s always that ostrich egg to scramble up,” John mused thoughtfully, eyes gleaming in anticipation. He stretched his neck a bit to look out at the road sign as they stopped at the stop sign and looked over at his partner. “Is this a shortcut I don’t know about?”

“I thought we were going to save that egg for breakfast with the rest of the crew? And no, I just thought of a place where we can get some chow.”

“Okay….” he murmured, seemingly satisfied, but Roy noticed he didn’t answer the question about the egg.

They drove for several more minutes, cruising slowly past one of the refineries that seemed to surround their station and the small businesses around it; Roy was beginning to think that the restaurant was a figment of someone’s imagination when he spotted a small, illuminated sign to their right. The flashing “open 24 hours” confirmed his guess that they had located the elusive eatery.

He pulled into the paved lot, noting the several cars, semis, and trucks scattered throughout. Either the place had decent food, or everybody else was desperate for food at two in the morning. He circled around so that the nose of the truck was pointing towards the road, and killed the engine.

Gage bounded out of the squad, swiveling his head about to take in the fairly well-lit area. He started with bouncing steps towards the dual, glass entranced doors, whirled about, and returned to the squad. He reached a long arm into the opened window and grabbed his light weight jacket that had been abandoned earlier in the middle of the seat.

“Probably should tuck your t-shirt in while you’re at it,” Roy observed drily, lips twitching in amusement as he stopped to wait.

One arm already into a sleeve, Johnny made a disgusted noise. He swatted at something on his bare arm before shrugging the rest of the way into the blue garment. He jammed the dirty undershirt into his turnouts and slapped again, but this time it was his neck that got his attention.

“Gotcha, ya little bugger!” He exclaimed, peering at his hand and then swiping it down his leg. “Although, I guess he got me first……”

He scratched at his neck, and then at the bitten arm, rubbing furiously through the fabric as he headed towards his partner. Roy waved an arm over his head as John drew near, hearing but not seeing the swarm of insects that seemed to be accompanying Gage’s forward progression. “It’s not the males that bite, it’s the females…”

“Of course it is,” came the muttered reply. “Thanks for clarifying that, Professor DeSoto.”

DeSoto grinned but wasted no time in yanking open one of the café doors and hurrying the furiously swatting young man through. He pushed in behind him, hoping that none of the buzzing mosquitos were hitching free rides. The low hum of noise within the restaurant became a dead silence as the handful of customers abandoned their coffee cups and food to stare at the disheveled firemen.

Johnny nervously ran a finger under his jacket collar and moved up to the counter, feeling the eyes upon him. The older woman behind the long stretch of Formica picked up a coffee pot and headed towards them. It took her several minutes to reach them as she refilled mugs and exchanged words with each patron.

“Some breakfast boys? Unless my watch is off, it’s too early for inspections.” She thumped the class carafe down, folded her arms and leaned towards them, giving them a cheery smile. She pulled a pencil from behind her ear, set it down on the pristine surface next to the heat radiating pot, and fished an order pad out of the pocket of her equally clean, white apron.

“Yes, ma’am, but could we get it to go, please? In case we get called out?” He relaxed somewhat as she handed him a large, plastic menu and without asking, poured him a cup of coffee and repeated the same actions with Roy. The noise around them had increased as normal conversations resumed and John ran his eyes down the vast selection, a pleased expression crossing his face at the many choices.

They ordered, and settled themselves carefully on the swiveling stools. The waitress moved away, slapping the order form down on the narrow ledge that separated the kitchen from her area and yelling something to the man busy on the grill.

“Never knew this was here,” Gage mused, placing a booted foot on the chrome rail in front of him and giving his stool little spins in both directions.

Roy nodded and took an appreciative sip of his coffee. “One of the fill in guys on C shift told me about it; he said it wasn’t much to look at, but the portions are huge and the food’s good.”

Watching his partner do a complete spin counterclockwise, Roy reached out a hand and stopped him from pushing off to twirl in the opposite direction. Johnny, in the process of gulping his caffeine, sputtered and choked at the sudden stop. DeSoto slapped him on the back several times and removed the empty mug from his hand.

“You okay?” He asked, his mouth still twisting in amusement despite his best efforts to keep a solemn face.

“You, uh….” Gage coughed again, and then took a long swallow of water from the glass the very alert waitress handed him. “Why’d you do that for?”

He swiped a hand across his chin to wipe off the excess water that had missed his mouth, and nodded his thanks to the hovering woman. She poured more of the steaming joe into their cups but pulled Johnny’s backwards when he reached for it.

“You finish that first, young man!” She ordered sternly and pointed at the water remaining in the glass he was still holding in his left hand. He gulped and nodded again; he raised the glass and finished it. Only after he set the tumbler back down did the threatening finger move and this time it swiveled towards Roy.

“And you, you leave this boy alone!”

It was the call of “order up” that saved both paramedics from further admonishment. She scurried off and the men looked at each other. John mouthed “boy” and slapped a hand against his chest, on his face a mixture of disbelief, uneasiness, and just plain confusion. The hand trailed up to his neck and rubbed at the mosquito bite; he frowned and dropped both his hand and his head.

“I feel like this whole shift has been an episode off of some television show,” he murmured, pushing the still full coffee away from him and propping his head up on his hand. His whole body felt like it was itching, burning, or sore from all of the unusual events that had played out and he wondered if they would make it through the final hours without encountering any more animals. He wasn’t going to bet any money on it that was for sure.

“You mean like the Twilight Zone?” Roy asked, confused at the sudden turn of the conversation. One moment they were uniting in bewilderment over the maternal actions of their waitress, whom he had to give credit to for diverting Gage’s anger, and the next minute Gage was talking about TV shows.

“Yeah, that’s the one…” Johnny mused, lifting his head from his hand and turning slightly on the stool to watch the server carrying on a rapid conversation with the cook within the kitchen. “Like they’re watching us through a microscope or somethin’….”

“Or something…” DeSoto repeated, hoping that it was their order that was being argued about. He could have sworn that he heard the word cockroach mentioned but surely he was just imagining things? If that was the case about the rodent, he sincerely hoped IT wasn’t their order being discussed.

Gage turned his attention back to Roy; his fingers busy playing with the strap of the HT Roy had lain on the counter when they had come in. “So why did you try to catapult me off my seat?” There was an accusatory tone to his question and the curious and puzzled expression that had been illuminating his face only seconds before morphed into something else, something that Roy couldn’t interpret.

The flippant answer about to fly from Roy was checked as he paused, considering what he had just seen. Johnny’s demeanor had now changed to a masked indifference and he had turned his dark head away once again, rubbing at a fresh blister on his hand with single minded concentration.

Roy finally shrugged; it was late in their shift and he was too weary to try and analyze this guy’s shifts in moods, behaviors, whatever. “You were making me dizzy, that’s all it was.”

“Oh.” There seemed to be a lot of emotion conveyed in that single word and Gage paused, obviously collecting his thoughts.

“I suppose you just startled me…” He offered up, cautiously swiveling the stool towards the left so that he could see his new partner.

DeSoto met the questioning gaze with a little smile. “I’m sorry too, for almost choking you, for whacking you in the nose, several times if I’m not mistaken, and for…well, I guess that’s it for now.”

Johnny snickered and gave him a light punch in the shoulder, which turned Roy a bit on the well lubricated stool. John laughed again, turned, and lifted his head in the opposite direction, sniffing as his attention was caught by the flavorful odor of cooked food moving towards them. The waitress was approaching, four plates balanced efficiently on her arms and hands.

“Now boys, I know you wanted this boxed up and not plated, but Fritz, that’s our cook, said to dig in and enjoy it hot. If you get called out on your little black box there, I’ll have this stuff ready for you in twenty seconds.” Having deposited the steaming plates down in front of them, she reached under the counter and waved several containers at them as evidence. She set them back down and busied herself with laying out butter and syrup.

“Wow, that’s a lot of food,” Johnny stated, picking up his fork and surveying the waffles, hash browns, eggs, and bacon overflowing his two plates. He glanced at the nametag pinned crookedly on her apron. “Thanks, Miss Loretta.”

“Oh pshaw, just doing my job like you fellas do yours. And this is good food too, so you go right ahead and eat up,” she added confidently, slapping down several napkins between them.

Gage nodded, his hand involuntarily creeping up to his neck once again to scratch at the annoying bite. Loretta noticed the movement and paused in pouring the never ending cup of coffee.

“One of those buggers got you, didn’t she? I swear, I think that oil refinery down yonder is raising these critters; they’re breeding and hatching in those stagnant pools of God knows what and come this way looking for fresh blood,” she complained fervently, squinting at the very red bite. “I think they get bigger by the year and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have two heads and about a zillion of those blood sucking sticks on ‘em.”

The firemen glanced at each other, both thinking along the same lines of mutant insects and what kind of weird, unknown disease could be pumping through John’s bloodstream right now. The younger man blew out an exasperated puff of air and plunged his fork into his food, choosing to ignore both the comment and his imaginative thoughts.

 Loretta leaned forward, her head of iron gray curls bobbing and trying to escape from the wide pink band of material encircling her hair as she tipped and tilted her head to get a better look at Johnny’s neck. “Hold still for a minute.”

“Mmmmph?” Johnny questioned, trying to talk around the mouthful of hash browns that had found their way to his mouth.

The waitress made a little sound of her own, stuck two fingers in her mouth, and then slapped the wet fingers down on the bite. She shook salt out of the shaker and onto the same fingers and applied the white granules on top of the now very wet welt.

Johnny reared back in surprise and dismay, clapping a hand over his mouth to prevent the potatoes from flying out and decorating everything within two feet. Roy threw up his own hand against the other man’s back; it was a safety precaution to keep the precariously backward leaning paramedic from splatting on the floor.

“There now,” the lady beamed, wiping her hands on her apron. “That should help a bit and keep it from itching so much. Did that for all of my kids and my momma did it for us, one of those remedies passed down, you know, like brown sugar and whiskey mixed together for the croup.”

She moved away, stopped to wash her hands in a sink that jutted out from the back wall, and began her circuit around the room with the coffeepot. Roy removed his hand and watched as John finally managed to swallow what was in his mouth and rinsed it down with a very large draught of coffee.

“Aw, man,” he sputtered, picking up one of the napkins and swiping his mouth and chin. “I feel like a little kid again.”

He looked down at the salt covered bite, apparently trying to decide whether to remove the sparkling mineral or leave it be. He shrugged, zipped up his jacket all the way to the top, and focused on the food in front of him.

Roy shook his head, picked up his knife and fork, and began methodically slicing the biscuits smothered in sausage gravy that covered one of his plates. He tasted, chewed, and made an appreciative noise. Gage glanced over, grinned, and continued coating his waffle in a layer of pale yellow butter. He cut the waffle along the indents into four pieces, moved the pieces away from the middle of the plate, and doused the space left in the center with syrup. He then picked up one of the squares, rolled it, and dipped it into the pool of caramel colored liquid.

He made his own noise of enjoyment. “That’s one good piece of food…”

Ten minutes later the plates were cleared, Johnny was enjoying a glass of milk, and Roy was wishing he hadn’t eaten quite so much. The door behind them opened and a man and women strolled into the café, arguing in low toned voices that could still be heard in the echoing acoustics of the small building.

“Look Frank, you just can’t handle them like that, it upsets them.” The speaker was the woman, very petite with long dark hair bound securely into a scarf and garbed in jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and lace up boots which her pant legs were stuffed into.

The man at her elbow simply shook his head and headed for one of the booths that lined the wall under the windows. He was several years older and was wearing jeans that had seen better days, a short sleeved t-shirt, and clunky, mud encrusted boots that forewarned of his approach. “They don’t care, and there was nothing wrong with the way I was handling them, okay? Quit arguing with me, and let’s get something to eat.”

He plopped into the shiny vinyl of the seat and patted the red surface next to him. The lady ignored the inviting gesture and slid into the other side, brushing nervously at her covered hair and snatching up a menu from the wire holder at the end of the table.

Johnny looked over at Roy, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and setting his now empty glass down with a little thunk. “You think they were talking about their kids?”

“I sure hope not,” Roy answered, distracted. He stifled a groan as he slid off the stool and stood up. He wondered if there were any antacids in the squad; if not, there was bound to be some floating around the station. Good food indeed, but there was a limit to how much you should stuff down your gullet and he had crossed that line easily. He could only hope that they wouldn’t get called out on a run that involved a lot of physical activity, like rescues or fires or all the other things they were paid to do. They had made it through their meal without any calls, so maybe the good citizens of their county would let them have another hour or so of quiet.

He noticed Gage was shooting wary looks over his shoulder as they headed for the exit doors. Probably on the lookout for their over mothering waitress, afraid she might charge over and hug him to death before they made it to the safety of the parking lot. For all of his under the breath mumblings though, John had held himself together pretty well. Even when the very forward woman had come around the counter, whispered something in his ear, and held his arm in a vise like grip he had simply stammered a “thank you”, remaining professional and outwardly calm during the encounter.

Of course when Roy had asked his very quiet partner what she had said, the only answer he had received was a fierce glare. That told him it had been something embarrassing, well, that and the telltale blush that darkened Gage’s already sunburned skin.

They made it out the doors without any interruptions and trotted towards their squad, both keeping a sharp lookout with both ears and eyes for the blood thirsty mosquitos. The slamming of doors as they both made it safely into the cab was accompanied by a surprisingly buzz free silence.

“Never thought I’d be running through a parking lot trying to avoid a herd of mosquitos…” Roy commented, watching in dismay as Johnny rolled up the window on his side. He gazed about the small space, contemplating the odds of how many mosquitoes were hiding with them.

“Yeah, well, I never thought I would have dried salt sticking to my skin either, adhered by some strange woman’s saliva,” Gage shot back, slouching back in his seat and lacing his hands across his stomach. He closed his eyes, pushing away that unpleasant thought and focusing more on the happy rumblings of his full belly. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to return to this place, even though he had thoroughly enjoyed the chow.

“You don’t seem to be scratching at it as much; did the salt and spit mix actually work?”

Johnny sighed and opened his eyes, staring out through the windshield. “I don’t know, maybe, or maybe I just don’t want to touch it with bare hands……”

Roy thought about that for a moment and smiled, understanding. He covered his mouth as he burped, and felt some relief. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

He put the key in the ignition and paused, his eyes catching a flicker of movement somewhere in front of him. Gage had suddenly sat up in his seat, leaning forward and scrutinizing the same view, so obviously he wasn’t just imagining things.

“I…uh, I see it, but I don’t believe it!” Johnny exclaimed, pointing a finger towards the furry animals staring back at them. “What are those?”

“I’m not really sure…llamas maybe?”

“Oh boy,” the younger man breathed, his voice rising in excitement. “I don’t know which is better, those things or that red elephant...”

“I would guess Tara trumps them all,” DeSoto muttered, not really believing that Gage’s interest was solely in the animals. He reluctantly followed his counterpart out of the truck. John had only taken several steps forward, resting his hip against the front fender and so Roy went around the back of the squad and came up behind him. He stood there a moment, looking at the four llamas who were studying them with equal curiosity.

“You think maybe they got out of there?” Johnny asked and waved fingers in the direction of a horse trailer attached to a dirty white pickup parked nearby. It hadn’t been there when they had arrived, and since one of the back doors of the equally mud splattered trailer was hanging open, it was a logical assumption.

“Yeah, and I’m sure that couple who was arguing when they came in probably own the whole rig. You want to go find out?”

“No, not really.” His voice was almost toneless now with just an edge of irritation lacing it, the excitement gone. It was a beseeching look that Gage turned on him, and Roy read the underlying meaning. He may not have shown much of a reaction inside the restaurant but it was clear that he did not want to encounter Loretta again.

“Ok, I’ll go find out and you, well, you’d better not get too close to those things,” Roy warned, delivering his own look that his partner seemed to understand.

“Right, right,” Gage acknowledged, but a grin was twisting his mouth into the exact opposite of his words. Roy had no doubt that when he came out the goofball would be reading the strange animals a bedtime story and lulling them to sleep, or something to that effect. Or maybe, after seeing the way he handled those chickens, he would have them all hogtied and lined up beside the squad on their backs. And probably have his boot on one them with his arms raised triumphantly in the air, wasn’t that how they did it in the rodeos when they were calf roping? Only having been to one rodeo in his life, Roy wasn’t quite sure of the correct procedure. But then again, with the day they had been having, it was more likely that Gage would end up on top of one of them and find himself riding a llama down the street and onto the freeway. Could you ride llamas?

He wasn’t clear on that either, and hastened his pace towards the café, looking backward over his shoulder as he reached the doors. Johnny was standing in the same spot; it looked like he was just observing the wooly beasts that were still regarding him with the same amount of interest. Hopefully they would all remain in the same positions, give him a little time to find the owners, and get the whole thing taken care of before it turned into a fiasco.

Johnny contemplated the animals in front of him and sincerely hoped that this wouldn’t end up turning into something that would have to be logged. He knew their captain was waiting for a more detailed explanation of their earlier runs; whether he was expected to give a formal report or just give the details informally he  wasn’t quite sure yet. It was hard to read Hammer, or maybe he was just looking too hard for nuances or unspoken messages that weren’t there. Whatever it was, Gage just didn’t want to explain this one, verbally or nonverbally.

He took a deep breath and decided to approach them like they were horses, or maybe equating them with sheep would be a better idea. Or, he should do what DeSoto had told him to do – stay in one place and basically behave. Not really what was said in words, but John hadn’t missed the meaning. He was pretty sure that’s why his serious partner had stopped him from spinning on the stool inside. Ok, maybe it was a bit childish especially since they were on county time and in uniform, but, hey, it was three in the morning and who cared if a guy was just having a bit of fun?

Johnny snorted and slowly took a step backwards, keeping his eyes on the llamas. Better check out the truck and trailer first, make sure the weird looking things had made their escape from there. He took little mincing steps sideways until he was sure they wouldn’t take off running at any movement he made. A quick check of the trailer and the pieces of straw that littered the path the llamas had taken confirmed his suspicions. Now all he needed to do was figure out how to get the runaways back into their cage on wheels.

He moved cautiously around the back of their vehicle and approached the animals from the driver’s side, coming up behind them. He talked quietly to them as he got closer, deciding to treat them like horses even though appearance wise the only thing they seemed to have in common with the equines was their color. Two of the larger llamas had their black wooly hair trimmed close, another one was white with tan splashes of color, and the fourth and smallest one was a solid white with longer strands of hair. Did they shear these things like sheep and use their hair, fur, wool, or whatever it was for weaving? Whatever they did with them, they looked clean and well fed.

The four creatures regarded him with mild interest, turning their heads to watch him, their long ears swiveling, and their noses twitching to catch all of the smells of the night. He got within two feet of the white and brown one before she stretched her neck toward him, took a suspicious sniff, and uttered an odd hissing noise. She and one of the black ones veered off towards the left, while the other two let Gage herd them with waving arms towards their trailer. He heard rather than saw the arrival of the owners; they were arguing once again as they took control of the all-white llama and one of the black ones.

Johnny trotted in the direction the other two has escaped, hoping they hadn’t made it to the road yet. At the edge of the parking lot the black pavement gave way to gravel and sloped downhill; he reached that point just in time to see the largest llama twist his body and brush against Roy, quite nicely knocking him off his feet and sending him feet first down the little hill in a cloud of dust and rattling stones.

Concerned at the noises that were coming from his new partner, John changed his trot to a lope and skidded to a halt alongside of the prone body. He glanced down at DeSoto, looked across at the rather forbidding creature that was standing a scant inch from Roy’s head, and after a second of indecisive hesitation lowered a hand to help the human up.

“Get me away from that two toed thing,” Roy ordered in a strangled voice, grabbing at the offered hand with his left hand. It was an off balance pull with Johnny trying to keep his balance in the loose soil and Roy tilting sideways to avoid the head and neck of the llama.

“He does have some weird feet,” John pondered, thinking that between the animal’s large size and those funny toes he could do some serious damage.

“Do you know that they are part of the camel family?” A breathless voice asked, and both men were relieved to see that the woman had appeared. She unwound the silvery, long scarf from her hair and looped it around the black llama’s neck, unconcerned with it nuzzling the long tresses of dark hair that were now cascading down around her shoulders.

“No, sure didn’t know that,” Johnny conceded easily, casting an admiring glance at her and then forcing his gaze away from the married woman and towards the road. Where did that other one go?

Roy was busy beside him slapping off the dust and debris that littered his uniform and putting on a good show of ignoring them both, but Gage was fairly sure that he paying close attention to everything that was going on around him.

“Do you guys think you can catch Ladybug?” The woman asked and gave a gentle shove to the llama’s neck as it bumped a little harder against her for attention. “I’ll help my brother load this big rascal and we’ll catch up to you….”

About to say no, Gage whipped his head back around at the mention of the sibling and checked out her ring finger. No ring and no sign of one ever being there….

 “Um, sure, or at least until we get a call,” he volunteered eagerly, ignoring DeSoto’s raised eyebrows and the little shake of his head. “Come on Roy; let’s see if we can catch up to her with the squad.”

Grinning, Johnny grabbed the other paramedic by the arm and tugged at him. With obvious reluctance, Roy let himself be pulled a few steps before he shook off the hand and ascended the slippery slope. He ran a hand through his hair, dislodging more dirt, and paused with his hand on the door of their truck. He watched the lady urging the black llama along with her scarf leash, heard a compartment door slam, and felt the squad move a bit as Johnny jumped up onto the back. He looked towards the café and noticed most of the customers were standing outside watching the excitement. Johnny’s favorite waitress was standing in front of all of them, arms crossed over her ample chest and leaning forward, as if to see better. She had taken the cat shaped glasses that had been hanging from a chain and perched them on her nose; there was no doubt in Roy’s mind that she would be heading this way if they didn’t get a move on.

“Just how do you plan on catching this thing?” he asked curiously, turning his attention back towards the truck and eyeing Gage as he crouched down in the narrow space to the left of the yellow air bottles. John looked up from his hunched over position and lifted up the rope he was fiddling with.

“I’m gonna throw a rope around her, how else? I think she went towards the left, towards that Gredco refinery that we passed. Just don’t make any hard turns, ok?”

DeSoto rolled his eyes but grudgingly started up the vehicle and pulled carefully out of the lot, turning left as instructed and flicking on the high beams. Sure enough, he could see the shape of the animal calmly ambling down the middle of the road. He cranked down his window and leaned out.

“What do you want me to do?”

“See if you can pull alongside her, so I can lasso her,” Johnny instructed confidently, cautiously standing up and shaking out the rope.

The next few moments reminded Roy of the rodeo he had been thinking about earlier. Johnny balancing with cat like grace on the bumping bed of the truck while he skillfully navigated right up to the side of the runaway Ladybug, the whistle of the rope as it twirled in the air, the graceful arc of the sailing hemp as it neared the head of the now trotting llama…and then of course his smugness at the smoothness of the events unfolding was shattered when the front wheel of the squad dipped into a pothole.

Johnny let out a yell worthy of a stadium full of Trojan fans, the llama jumped sideways with the ineffectual rope sliding off its side, and Roy almost suffered a heart attack as he caught sight, in his mirror, of his barely broke in partner hanging half off the vehicle, head and shoulders pointing down towards the ground. Gingerly easing down on the brake, he slid the truck to a gentle stop and heaved a sigh of relief as his dark haired counterpart caught his balance and pulled backwards. Gage thumped down onto the glossy red metal and let loose a volley of words that made Roy grin and blush at the same time.

“Over there, she went over there!” Slapping the glass of the cab to catch Roy’s attention, Johnny pointed towards the parking lot of the refinery. Thankful for the lack of traffic on the two lane road, DeSoto cut across the lanes and followed the sight of the bobbing tail down the driveway that led to the guard shack.

“Oh boy,” Roy muttered as the loping animal nimbly darted around the white and red gate arm. An older man with his olive green uniform stretched tight over his ample belly, stepped out of the little, white painted box and waved his arms at the retreating llama. Roy tapped the horn to get the man’s attention; the guard reached an arm back into the box and slapped at something. The arm raised and they drove through, the openmouthed fellow staring up at the fireman perched on the top and then back at Roy. Roy gave a little wave and followed Ladybug, who had slowed down and was now ambling across the expanse of cement.

Thankfully, because it was an off shift, the lot was only about a quarter full of vehicles. Roy couldn’t even imagine trying to catch the wily footed beast in a sea of cars; it was going to be bad enough trying to corral her in the acre or so of metal and concrete.

He heard the thump on the roof of the cab; hopefully it was the signal from Gage that he was ready and didn’t mean that he had fallen off. He accelerated, keeping one eye on the llama and the other on the surface of the cement they were rolling across. The full moon climbing its way through the haze of the city was lending an eerie illumination to the whole animal versus human chase, and for the briefest moment Roy wondered if the llama was going to come out the winner.

“Not on my watch,” he declared and caught himself before he instinctively hit the siren and lights. Over the noise of the tires he could hear Johnny shifting his weight; a quick glance backwards showed the other man had gotten up from his position sitting on the forward box and was now standing sideways with knees slightly bent to maintain his balance, rope dangling from his right hand.

Now thoroughly engrossed in the chase, DeSoto fought down the urge to whoop; instead he muttered under his breath,” Go get ‘em partner” as he pulled alongside the llama once again. He kept a firm grip on the wheel as he watched, in his side mirror, the rope sail through the air and land neatly over the animal’s head. Success this time! He slowed and stopped, threw it in park, and stepped out of the truck in time to see Johnny vault nimbly over the side and land with a thud next to the two toed critter.

“We make a pretty good team, eh?” Johnny asked, displaying his teeth in a wide grin and proudly thumping a hand against his chest, doing an excellent imitation of a gorilla showing off in front of the females. And sure enough, perfectly timed, came the owner of the llamas, her hair still flowing freely down her back and her smile as big as the one Gage was sporting.

“You caught her! Thank you so much, I really appreciate you guys doing this for us!” She gushed, taking the rope from John’s hand and beaming as bright as the moon overhead.

Roy nodded in acknowledgement as she turned her high wattage beam on him, and then watched in amusement as his very attentive partner trailed her down the wide aisle all the way to the end where their truck and trailer was haphazardly parked. He looked a little closer and realized Johnny wasn’t just being polite or overly enthusiastic; the lady had him by the elbow and was practically dragging both him and the equally reluctant llama.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw and debated whether he should step in and rescue the kid. Nah, he didn’t appear to be in any distress. In fact, he appeared to be enjoying himself although it was kinda hard to tell from this distance. Yawning, Roy crawled back into the truck, drove to the end of the aisle, swung right and headed back towards the entrance/exit. The guard was probably throwing a fit about right now, having a runaway llama, a fire vehicle, and a trailer full of four footed animals all wandering freely about the place…..oh well, let him stew for a bit, probably more excitement in twenty minutes then the guy had had in his whole career.

He picked Gage up after witnessing a very long lip lock between him and the lady, who instigated it but since his partner didn’t seem to be in any hurry to end it, DeSoto figured there was enjoyment on both sides. Although the way Frank, the brother, was standing there glowering and tapping his foot, he figured the woman wasn’t going to have fun dealing with him once they left.  He didn’t say anything until they had passed the guard and his little candy striped pole arm and had pulled out onto the street.

“So….” he drew the word out and shot a fast glance at his passenger. Johnny returned the look, shrugged his shoulders, made a wry face, and settled comfortably back against the vinyl of the seat. He sighed in contentment, rolled down his window, and ran a hand through his hair.

“So…….what?” Gage finally deigned to answer, innocence dripping off of him. “She thanked me for catching the llama, and offered me a job.”

“A job doing what, catching those camel ancestors? And somehow I don’t think Frank there approved of you fooling with his sister, so why would he agree to that?” Roy threw another quizzical glance in the younger paramedic’s direction, distracted from his questions by the sight of John’s head. The running of the hand through the dark hair had resulted in it shooting in every direction, hanging over his ears and brushing down onto his jacket collar. The regulation hair length that Johnny had been sporting last shift appeared to have grown at least an inch in forty eight hours; Roy suspected that the guy was using some kind of hair product on it to keep it contained. Jumping into his bunk after a shower wasn’t the best way to wake up with a well-groomed head of hair, especially if you were doctoring it up to keep it within length requirement.

Feeling the darting glances at his head, John raised both hands up and tried to tame it into place. “Well, sorta, they’re heading for the Grand Canyon; they’re going to start up a business going down to the bottom using the llamas as pack animals. And, I’m pretty sure she wears the pants in that partnership, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh,” Roy replied, unable to think of anything to say to that. He headed in the direction of the hospital, feeling the throbbing in his hand and remembering the several attempts he had made to get there.

“She offered you a job too,” Johnny added, after a moment of silence.

Roy snorted, thinking of the impossibility of it. “Can you imagine me wrangling one of those things down one of those narrow trails? They do have some trails, right?”

“Yeah, there’s some that have been around a long time. I haven’t been there since I was a kid, though, so who knows how many there are now.” He paused, considering something. “You know, they could really build up that business. Get some horses, mules, whatever, and lead tours down to the bottom, camp out and then head back up the next day. I bet a lot of people would go for that.”

“Not me,” DeSoto said. “The one time I got up on a horse my wife said I looked like a sack of grain with legs. Maybe you should take the llama people up on their offer and suggest the expansion.”

Johnny laughed. “You trying to get rid of me already? Hey, who knows, at least I have a job to fall back on if this one doesn’t work out.”

The radio, which had been silent for so long, went off with multiple stations being called, including their engine. The paramedics grabbed their helmets; John acknowledged the call and scribbled down the address.

“Sounds like a bad one,” he said quietly, as Roy hit the sirens and lights.

Roy pursed his lips, nodded, and switched lanes. “Aren’t they all?”

~TBC~

 


	10. Pricks and Growls

**__ **

The jovial mood that had flitted lightly about disappeared within the cab as Roy entered the freeway once more and headed for the multiple station call. The address led them back towards the less populated area of their territory, right on the fringes. Darkness settled around them as they left the well-lit expanse of interstate and barreled down a two-lane paved road that seemed to waver in front of the high beams that DeSoto had turned on. Through the down windows came the sounds of the night, all animal noises as far as Johnny could tell. Of course, it could just be his overactive imagination, since every call they had responded to during the shift had involved some sort of furred, fanged, or crawly creature.

The wailing of sirens soon washed away the nocturnal harmony and John leaned on his arm to peer out his window. They were probably still a mile out but even from here he could see the dancing flicker of flames silhouetted against the inky blackness of the night sky. Minutes later they turned down a short, dirt road that led to what looked like an abandoned farm. The dilapidated farmhouse was engulfed in a ball of fire, and the many outbuildings scattered haphazardly throughout the acreage were in danger of being consumed as the wind had picked up and was doing a strange, swirling dance between the buildings. The start of the Santa Ana winds, no doubt, a nightmare for firefighters all over southern California, Johnny noted with concern. He tumbled out of the cab and grabbed his coat out of the front compartment. Roy met him at the side shrugging on his own coat and together they pulled out their SCBAs.

“Don’t see that too often,” John murmured, waving a hand in the general direction of their engine as he lifted his mask to his face and tested it. The black, hard suction hose that usually resided on each side of the Crown was being used to pull water from a pond located down a slope off to the side of the burning structure. Roy nodded in agreement, taking it all in with a quick glance as he wiggled his shoulders to settle the tank on his back.

Johnny led the way, Roy a foot to the side of him, as they loped over to where Captain Hammer was standing, HT in his hand and squinted gaze fixed on the action playing out. Upon spying his paramedics bearing down on him, he pointed an ungloved hand towards three outbuildings towards the south. “Men, we’re on containment only on this one. The chief says that while the place has been deserted for several years, it’s a hangout for partying teens and the occasional tramp. Do a quick search of that barn and the sheds over there; make sure we have no unexpected occupants. With this wind picking up…” he trailed off, letting them draw their own conclusion to the danger that existed with all the weathered wood and shingles. He then focused his commanding stare on Gage, his eyebrows raising in a questioning arc. Johnny hastily grabbed the helmet that was hanging by the strap from his neck and slapped it on his head, not sure if the intimidating look was for the dangling headgear or his too long hair. Possibly for both, but hopefully any future reprimands would be forgotten.

The medics trotted back to their squad and pulled off their SCBAs, dropping them in the dirt against the rear tire. They grabbed the green captain lanterns and John snagged the ax before they headed for the closest shed, dodging tumbleweeds and other blowing debris. The leaning edifice proved to be empty of human occupants and everything else, except for a pair of glowing eyes in the corner. Johnny couldn’t help the little shudder of disgust that encompassed his body for a second as he considered the possibilities of what was lurking in there; in the brief flash of light he had glimpsed something furry about the size of a rat but a dark color. Did rats come in black? He wasn’t sure, and stepped back from the doorway, slamming the surprisingly still sturdy door closed with a little more force then needed.

“It’s clear,” he declared to his partner, deciding ignorance about four legged rodents was better in this instance.

Roy led off towards the next building, picking his way carefully through the weed choked, narrow passageway that separated the two sheds. Stepping around the corner, he skirted the rusted hunk of farm machinery that partially blocked the entrance and rattled the handle. Locked tight, so he shone his light towards the window that flanked the door. Nothing could be viewed through the small pane of glass due to blockage within; either that or the window was coated with a film of dirt. With a grunt of annoyance, DeSoto bent over and poked the flashlight through the jagged hole at the bottom of the door, hoping to be able to see inside and avoid having to waste the time to break the door down.

Thankfully, the building was small and narrow enough that he was able to see all the way to the back wall. This one was empty too, except for shelves that lined the walls littered with what looked like jars of screws and other hardware. A rustling sound to his right diverted his attention, and he slowly turned his head to see what was lurking in the patch of overgrown foliage. Nothing was visible in the darkness.

“Is it empty?” John queried from behind him as he started pulling his arm back from the hole. The sleeve of his thick coat vibrated as the rustling grew louder and Roy jerked in surprise as Gage’s lantern swept over him and illuminated what was lurking in the weeds and also why his coat had twitched.

“Oh boy! Don’t move that arm, Roy,” John cautioned, his free hand gripping his partner’s shoulder and drawing him backwards. They reached the clearing and stopped, Johnny now gingerly holding the sleeve up by the edges. “You’ve been quilled, man! Do you feel anything on your arm?”

“No, I don’t think they made it through the turnout,” DeSoto replied in dismay, staring at the multitude of porcupine quills sticking out of the material.

“Good, that’s good, just keep that arm still while I get this coat off of you.”

Using extreme caution, the younger man unlatched Roy’s coat and worked it off, starting with the unaffected left arm. When he had peeled off the turnout all the way to the right shoulder, he had to stop and unzip the blue jacket underneath and remove that also. It appeared that some of the quills had penetrated the material and were holding the two outer garments together. He paused and looked at Roy with concern as he once again stood in front of him and held both sleeves up away from the arm.

“Before I pull this off, still ok? Nothing touching your skin?”

“Ah, nothing more than a scratching sensation at the worst,” Roy admitted truthfully, eyeing the barbs. Johnny pulled the coats off simultaneously, dropped them, and scrutinized the arm. He sighed in relief and flicked the light beam towards the coats.

“I think you’re awfully lucky.” He seemed about to say something more, but instead shook his head, picked up the garments, and jerked his head towards the last edifice they needed to check. “Come on, let’s go take a look at that barn.”

“Right, right,” Roy said, agreeing with both statements. He glanced over his shoulder as they trekked rapidly towards the largest building. He could no longer see the fiery orange of flames against the dark; it looked like the fire was under control.

Set back quite a distance from the two small outbuildings they had just checked, the well-worn path to the barn was littered with rusty farm implements and various, unknown junk. Johnny had slowed down his rapid pace to avoid impaling himself and DeSoto caught up to him.

“Is quilled even a word?” He asked curiously, warily flashing his light off to the side and sweeping the yard for anything moving in the million and one hiding places.

“No idea, just seemed appropriate at the time,” Gage replied, jiggling the coats away from his body so that Roy could clearly see the pin cushioned fabric. “I’ll pull them out for you; I know someone who makes jewelry out of these things.”

“Jewelry, huh, can’t imagine that for some reason,” he admitted, reflexively rubbing his bare arm and trying to picture something made out of the sharp barbs. Perhaps it could be used as a defensive weapon….

“Make a great gift for your wife and it’ll remind you of this great shift whenever she wears it, “John suggested slyly, lips twitching in amusement. His expression changed as he thought about the other animal he had just seen. “You know Roy, I’m pretty sure there was a skunk in that first building I checked. I thought maybe it was a rat, but it was dark colored and was pretty good size.”

Roy snorted, remembering the flood control tunnel from earlier and his increasing panic at the thought of a pack of rats trailing them through that dark, swampy area. “Honestly, I think I might just take the skunk over the rat right now. I wonder what would happen if you crossed a porcupine with a skunk?”

Johnny looked at him in disbelief, waggled his eyebrows, and snickered. “A porciphew?”

“Or maybe a stinkacushion?” Roy countered with a grin, stepping over what appeared to be a pile of petrified animal dung.

“Skunkapine*? Or maybe, umm, a smelly porker, or pine air freshener?”

The banter ceased as they reached the front of the barn, which had the traditional two doors butted together and held closed with a simple wooden bar. Trying to muscle the warped wood upwards and out of the metal holder proved to be an impossible task; Gage gingerly fished the HT out of the pocket of Roy’s turnout coat, tossed both coats out of the way, threw the HT to his partner, and used the ax handle to pound the stubborn bar loose. They pulled the right door open with extreme caution, standing off to the side and peering inside.

“Looks like a typical barn,” Roy observed, noting the straw and dirt covered floor, a large, open loft with bales of hay stacked upon it, and various small farm implements adorning the walls. There were stalls to the left and an open area in front and to the right of them. “Shouldn’t take too long to check this out.”

“I’m surprised all this stuff is still around if people are stomping through here,” Johnny said, warily moving inside and turning to the left.

They quickly scanned the stalls and proceeded to the other side. Gage, who was waving his light in a wide arc, stopped walking, and bounced on his feet experimentally. “There must be some kind of basement or something under here, the floor here isn’t dirt and feels kinda springy.”

He bent down and swiped at the surface with his gloved hand. “Hey, check this out, looks like a trapdoor.”

Roy, who was off to the side and only a step or two behind, caught up to him and shone his flashlight over the indicated area. As Gage brushed, the outline of a rectangular door became visible. He yanked his spanner wrench off his coat and hooked the tip through the ring and pulled. The door yielded and he flung it open.

“Looks like some kind of cellar, storage area or something?” Johnny jumped into it and landed with a soft thud; Roy was amused to see that the area was only about three-foot-high, as most of partner was still above the barn floor. “Dunno, not very big, whatever it is. And….”

He crouched down and shone his light around before popping back up like a jack in the box. “Whatever they had in here, it’s empty now. Plus, it’s small, real small, wait, do you smell something?”

 Roy took an experimental sniff and swiveled his head around as he caught a whiff. “Yeah, I sure do. Cigarette smoke?”

Gage’s “uh huh” was smothered as he sneezed; dust and wisps of hay showered down on him through the cracks of the loft above. He started to look up, thought better of it as the dusty deluge continued, and waved an arm in front of his face in annoyance. Tugging at his helmet, he coughed and shouted, “Hey up there! Fire department! You need to come down, right now!”

Roy looked about for the loft ladder as a rustling started above them and grew to include a medley of noises. Noises that were easily identifiable as a muffled argument growing in volume, breaking glass, and loud thumps; the senior paramedic couldn’t help a smirk of disbelief as he spun away from John, still unable to locate the exit route for the completely clueless idiots overhead. A farmhouse burning to the ground probably less than three hundred feet away and the obvious smoking in a building smothered in flammable materials really made him wonder who was trying to scramble to safety up there – teenagers or adults?

 And then the raw, primal scream from a juvenile voice as the rustling developed into an ominous crackling, a sound that any firefighter could tell you in an instant what it was before it could be seen or even smelled. Creaks and groans that did not belong to the people running for their lives began scant seconds later. The wood trembled above them, a heartfelt curse burst from Gage, and Roy whirled again. He thrust out his arm to aid his partner’s anticipated leap from the coffin like hole, but his gloved hand touched nothing but air. Instead of jumping out, Johnny was frozen in place and staring straight ahead. Snarling and one sharp bark and Roy saw the reason for the staring contest that seemed to be occurring.

A severely emaciated German Shepherd was half crouched about three feet in front of his partner, canine fangs protruding from a snarling black mouth. His fur was bristling straight up around his head, similar to that of a male lion. A wide-eyed look towards Roy and then Johnny vaulted out, using a hand on either side of his body to propel himself upwards. The moment his feet hit the floor and he straightened his body the dog launched, impacting in the middle of Gage’s chest and knocking them both back into the hole. A half second later, an enormous wooden barrel rolled through the splintering floorboards above and exploded in a burst of wood and liquid in the exact same spot Gage had been standing. Roy had no time to ponder the impossibility of that miracle; what he saw out of the corner of his eye caused him to dive after his partner and the dog into the dubious safety of the hidden cellar. As he landed on fur and flesh, he heard a strange cry from his new partner.

“It is not a good shift to die!”

And then he heard no more, as the rest of the hay loft followed the barrel’s trajectory and crashed down in a flurry of splintered wood, hay, and glass; the whole barn shuddered in protest.

~TBC~

 

_A/N – Many thanks for reading, and reviewing, this odd little story as it draws to a close._

_*Special thanks to Karen and Donna, my E! friends way over the pond, who came up with the last three skunkaprick words!_


	11. Licks and Lights

**_ Chapter 11 _ **

_A/N - Sorry for the delay in writing, but real life and the inability to put my imagination into words limited my scribblings to about 50 words per day, which can take forever to create a simple, short chapter!_

Several long minutes later, and after the confusion had finally departed his muddled brain, Roy realized he was still within the thankful coils of mortal embrace and apparently also intact. He could move everything but there was a limit to how far he was able to stretch his limbs. He was lying face down at a diagonal angle with something a scarce inch above him blocking his ability to raise himself upwards or even turn his head. After a moment’s thought and the rapid blinking of dust to clear his vision, DeSoto realized his cheek was resting on the rough material of a turnout coat and he was staring at Johnny’s smudged chin. There was also the little fact that the back of his head was snuggled up against fur; he didn’t have to make much of a guess that it was the dog keeping Gage warm and pinned.

“Johnny? You ok?” He asked, feeling the chest moving beneath him in a steady up and down cadence. Alive at least…so hopefully those odd words the younger man had yelled out would prove to be prophetic. A weird thing to say, indeed, and he wondered for a second where he had heard or read something like that before.

“Think so, would probably help if I didn’t have a two-ton paramedic smashing me, and a scrawny wet fur ball with fleas licking me,” Gage replied slowly, voice raspy from the still settling haze but no trace of distress coloring his retort. If anything, he sounded relieved, possible because the shepherd WAS licking his face, instead of tearing him apart.  “Can you figure out what’s running down the side of my face; if I move my head in that direction I’m going to get a mouthful of that stuff, and I really do need to move my head in that direction!”

He didn’t need to explain his complaint as the sound of wet slurps was getting louder and faster, apparently on or in the vicinity of John’s mouth. Roy grunted in agreement and stretched his hand out to touch the steady stream of liquid. He brought his wet fingers up to his nose, cautiously sniffed, and emitted another grunt, this one of surprise. He tasted it and snorted in laughter.

“Looks like a still and all the inventory fell on us; this is moonshine. Kinda explains the breaking glass I heard, and probably what that barrel was being used for.”

John replied by turning his mouth a quarter of an inch away from the drool bath and letting the alcohol funnel down his parched throat. He coughed and quickly jerked his head back; he smacked it against whatever was forming an “L” shaped, hard barrier around the top and the other side of his head. He instinctively whipped his head back and sputtered, swallowing audibly as more of the liquor trailed into his mouth. The dog had stretched her head up even further and he could no longer avoid the increasing flow of moonshine. “Damn! That’s some nasty stuff! Would ya quit it, girl? Lick the splinters out of my cheek if you have to use that Brillo pad on something... ”

The dog responded with a happy wiggle of its whole body, the vibrations jostling both paramedics. It was on the tip of DeSoto’s tongue to ask how Gage knew the dog was a girl when he came to the abrupt realization that they were being doused with liquor; somewhere up above them the unseen fire was most likely still burning. He felt the body beneath him shudder under the continuing onslaught of drool and dripping, highly flammable booze and knew the same horrible thought had just occurred to Gage.

“Can you move at all?” The question, choked out around the hasty swallowing Gage was doing, was laced with hope and an underlying trace of fear. A low whimper from the shepherd told Roy that the stray had picked up on the subtle change in John’s tone. “Or reach the HT, wherever it is?”

Roy responded by inching sideways. If he could clear his partner’s chest and drop the rest of his body into the narrow dirt space where his feet and part of his legs were already resting, he should be able to reach under his body and snag the HT that was digging uncomfortably into his upper thigh, hopefully before John drowned in moonshine or they both became human torches. With an audible gasp, he accomplished the feat, cheek scraping against the pebbly roughness of the dirt floor.

Now that he had the extra room, he was easily able to slide his left arm underneath and find the strap to the HT. Earlier he had slipped their link to the outside into the front pocket of his turnout pants; with a bit of awkward fumbling he managed to tug it free and extract it. He could hear Johnny shifting sideways away from the intoxicating and flammable liquid and pushing at the dog, who had finally stopped its incessant licking.

“Ok, ok,” Roy mumbled, pushing both arms forward. There wasn’t enough room to extend them any farther than the top of his head but at least he could get both hands on the radio and partially see what he was doing. A burst of static rewarded his steady but hurried efforts and Roy’s disappointed exclamation ended in a cough. He swallowed down the dust and licked his dry lips. “Too much interference, Johnny, there’s something blocking the signal.”

“Yeah, I kinda heard that,” was the muffled reply and Roy saw that Gage had finally dislodged the hairy creature. He had turned a bit so that his uncovered head was pushing against Roy’s forearm, and had his legs drawn up as far as they could go, which wasn’t much. Roy was no longer able to see the dog, but he could hear her whining and scratching by John’s feet.

“What is she doing?” He asked, feeling with his right arm along the wall of their enclosure.

“I think there’s a break in the wall. Move girl, that’s a good girl….”

The dog obeyed and dragged her front half across Johnny’s hips; he grunted and thrust his legs forward with as much force he could manage. Two more kicks and DeSoto heard the unmistakable sound of breaking wood. An eternity later, as the terrifying odor of burning materials filled the space that had first saved them than threatened to entomb them, Johnny broke through the barrier. The dog wiggled her way through on her belly first with Gage close behind her, inching his way on his back in obvious frustration at his lack of rapid mobility and the insufficient space that prohibited him from rolling over. Whatever had crashed onto the floor above them had pushed the thick wood planks downwards; the three foot height of the room had easily diminished to half of that. Roy emulated the dog by pulling himself forward on bare forearms and trying not to smack into his partner’s head as Gage struggled to force his way through the small hole he had kicked open.

With a snarl of triumph, Johnny worked his shoulders through and pulled his head out of sight and into the unknown area beyond. Roy followed, hitching one shoulder up to get the widest part of him through; the rest of him slid forward rapidly as he felt his partner’s hands under his arms helping him along.

The room, or storage area that they had just slithered into, was about the same size as the one they had just escaped from. The ceiling in this one, however, was only bowed in several places; a fact that John was happily demonstrating with his crouching, flat footed pose next to Roy’s still prone figure.

“Check this out,” he instructed gleefully, swinging his light towards the far wall where the dog was waiting. He was thankful that Gage had obviously located the captain lantern during his awkward crawl through the first room; DeSoto awkwardly pushed up and did as he was told. He could make out what appeared to be the outline of a door. He didn’t have to answer for his partner was already crawling on hands and knees to their next exit with haste.

The thick smoke that was swirling through the cracks in the floorboards above them and following them through the jagged hole was incentive enough for Roy to quickly follow. He reached his side just as Gage wrestled open the last of the three heavy- duty, barrel bolt locks.

“Geesh,” he complained breathlessly, trying to pull the door open and only succeeding in getting it yanked about an inch towards them. He yanked off his left glove and tossed it down, gripping the edge of the door with his fingers while using his gloved hand to scrape away the dirt and small rocks that were built up in front of it. Roy helped him, realizing belatedly that his gloves were in the pocket of his turnout pants; he had thought they were in the abandoned coat outside.

Both men were coughing frequently now accompanied by the harsh pants of the scruffy canine. The stubborn door finally cleared the debris and Johnny snatched up the flashlight and waved it quickly across wherever they were going to be heading into - whether they wanted to or not. He dropped the light into the dirt and began pulling off his heavy coat.

“Here, put this on, you’re gonna need it,” he advised, pushing the garment into Roy’s hands. He picked up the light and shimmied out of the narrow opening feet first and his partner, without question, struggled into the apparently needed protection.

DeSoto could hear the slide of dirt and rock as Gage completely disappeared. He swallowed hard and shoved his own head and shoulders out to reconnoiter what he was about to jump into. It was definitely the outdoors, because he could smell and taste the welcome night air. A light flashed up and he caught a brief glimpse of a steep slope that ended in a tangle of bushes where John was standing. The noise of collapsing boards invading his space and the ominous crackle of fire spurred him onward; he clumsily crawled through the rectangular shaped door and was able to get his feet under him before losing his balance. He created his own avalanche as he sped downhill on his rear.

He was stopped by a thick, prickly wall of brambles, thankfully slamming into the dense hedge rubber boots first. As he struggled to stand and regain just a shred of dignity, he understood why Gage had given him the coat; the thorns were greedily stretching out their dagger pointed tips seeking purchase. Helping him into an uncomfortable crouching position, John uttered a colorful word and Roy seconded the word choice as they both struggled to avoid the tangle of overgrown bushes. It would be another addition to the dictionary in his mind that he had started at the beginning of the shift and which showed no signs of being completed anytime soon.

“What the devil are these things?” he asked in irritation, feeling a bit guilty as he noted the bleeding scratches on his partner’s wrist where the light weight jacket had ridden up. Johnny noted his gaze and shoved his sleeves down to cover the exposed skin between glove and material.

“Dunno, blackberries maybe? And, maybe some other things growing in there with them? There’s some dried up ones still hanging up there, see?”

The flashlight illuminated the shriveled remains of berries and Roy nodded in agreement as he scanned the area around them. His anxiety ratcheted up a notch as he realized the head high jungle extended the whole length of the side of the barn where they were crouching, and at least a hundred yards beyond on both sides, forming an impenetrable fence. The steep embankment butted up against it prohibited any kind of walking or even crawling along its edges and judging by the amount of smoke escaping through the walls and roof of the barn, he was sure they had very little time left before the whole structure blew up from the illicit moonshine.

Patting his pocket, DeSoto was dismayed to find that the handi talkie had disappeared. It had either fallen out as he had crawled through that last storage area, or had vanished while he had been struggling with the turnout coat. Probably hadn’t got it all the way back in…..he added another word to his mental dictionary and jumped slightly when Gage’s hand thumped his shoulder.

“Way I see it, we got two choices. Either we crawl along this blackberry wall, snagging our clothes and moving like turtles, or we follow that dog through that hole.” The loud barking blasting from the general area Gage was pointing towards confirmed the whereabouts of the stray; from the other direction they could also hear the welcome sound of men’s shouts and the distinct noise of water spraying from hoses and an aerial nozzle.

Roy stared at the jagged edges of the tunnel John was shining his light on and opened his mouth to negate the last suggestion; there was no way he was going to follow some animal’s tunneled out trail. With the luck they were having, it would probably lead to a den of bears or something equally big and ferocious. Of course, that was if they made it that far as there was the very, very strong possibility that when the barn did blow, the dry branches would ignite and they would be caught in the middle of it like kindling at a campfire.

He snapped his mouth closed as he saw the gleam in Johnny’s eyes and realized he had made his choice already. In fact, he had turned away and was already forcing his way through the prickly bushes, doing a fairly good imitation of a burrowing animal. A quick shake of his head and Roy followed, trying to leave a safe distance between his face and the booted feet he was crawling after. Their progress was slow but steady; the thorns were impeding any kind of fast escape with their clutching claws tugging at their clothes.

Several long minutes later the claustrophobic passage opened into a tiny clearing paved with brilliant green grass. Both men stood up slowly, stretching abused muscles and glancing warily about. Aside from the panting dog, there was no sign of any other inhabitant of the fairy like enclosure.

“Is it just my imagination, or does it feel like Tinkerbelle is going to come flying through here, sprinkling her fairy dust all over the place?” DeSoto asked with a grin, pivoting in a slow circle. The wind had picked up some more but was effectively blowing the clouds away from the full moon, giving them the advantage of a soft illumination over the whole area.

John snorted as he pulled off a glove and dropped it at his feet. “More like the wicked witch of the east, or was it the west?” He tentatively sniffed the air before touching the fresh scratches on his face and wincing. “You think they got that fire out? Must not have been much of that whiskey in there, otherwise…..”

He let the words trail off, rubbing a hand across his chin reflexively as he gazed towards the barn. Roy followed the look. “I think so and probably the only stuff left was that one barrel that shattered all over us.”

“A spark could still…hey! Give that back, you mangy…..” the dog backed up, Gage’s glove clutched in her mouth and growls emitting from her curled lips. “Ah hell, I thought we were past that stage, just take the stupid thing!”

The shepherd whirled and plunged through another, smaller opening that appeared to continue in the same direction they had been traveling. Johnny scuffed his boots through the lush grass and bent down to check out the hole. He stood up with a groan and shook his head. “Barely big enough for a rabbit, let alone that dumb dog. What’s she doing?”

Roy sighed and did a visual sweep of their tiny sanctuary of an island in the midst of a thorn thicket. There were more openings, yes, but none big enough for either one of them to crawl through. “Your guess is as good as mine and besides, aren’t you the expert on animals?”

“Where’d you get that idea?” Gage demanded, trying to brush off some of the dirt that was clinging to his still damp turnouts, and failing. He glared at Roy, but his mouth was turning up at the corners and betraying his mock indignation.

“Probably after watching you herd chickens across the road, that’s what started that line of thought. And that cat making itself at home on your chest, those llamas you were wrangling across the parking lot…do I need to go on?”

“Uh huh and how do you explain two scorpions, the mosquitos, those stupid parrots that did their business on me…” he trailed off as he considered the impenetrable brush in front of him and then looked up, assessing the height.  Here the hedge was about a foot higher than what it had been where they entered. He shrugged off his blue jacket and looked over at the older man. “Hey, let me have my coat back and give me a boost up.”

Roy’s eyes tracked over and upwards. He raised his eyebrows but unfastened the coat and stood behind his contemplative partner. “I suppose you want me to throw you up there on top of that…er, jungle?”

“That’s the plan, unless you want to camp out in here all night.”

“Obviously not, but why don’t we just crawl back the way we came in and shout for help on the other side of this thicket? It looks like the fire is out.”

Both men stood silent for a moment staring at the night sky above the two story barn. The wind that had been whipping the clouds only moments before had subsided somewhat but was still strong enough to flip Gage’s disarrayed hair into an arrangement that was even worse than it had been. There was no sign of flame, smoke, or anything else; the sounds of men overhauling was a welcome relief.

Johnny took the coat still held loosely in Roy’s two hands and shook it out in front of him, regarding it dubiously. “They’re not gonna hear us for quite some time, we’re not going to be able to crawl along or up that slope without sliding right back into this mess, and…..” He looked over his shoulder and grinned sheepishly. “And I’m hungry and there’s an ostrich egg calling my name.”

“Oh,” was all the older man could think to say, at least for the moment. Hadn’t they just eaten two hours ago? The food had finally settled in his stomach but he was definitely not hungry or anywhere even close to it. “I suppose you’d better take my glove since the dog made off with yours.”

Gage accepted the proffered glove with a bigger grin, pulled it on, tossed his blue jacket over his shoulder, and held the turnout in front of him like a shield. He lifted up a foot and waited as DeSoto cupped his hands and placed them under the hovering boot.

“Ready?”

“Yep!”

It was a clumsy landing but perfect with Johnny throwing the heavier coat in front of him to land on. He still managed time for a few scathing words as with grim determination he scrambled on hands and knees to the edge of it, tossed his blue jacket down, and scrabbled forward once again. Roy lost sight of the booted feet immediately and as he stepped backwards to try and get a better view, he hoped this would be the last time this shift that he would be staring at the bottoms of his partner’s feet.

Hearing him but no longer able to see anything, Roy turned a slow circle and peered upwards, watching as the clouds scudded through the early morning sky and covered the moon. A brief flicker of light caught his attention; it winked out but then reappeared a second later a few feet away. Several more of the lights flitted by and Roy raised his eyebrows in surprise at the sight.

“Fireflies in Los Angeles, in California even? You have got to be kidding me!” he exclaimed out loud. He ran a hand over his face and briefly closed his eyes. When he reopened them the tiny lights were gone and once again the moon had been uncovered, illuminating the area with its pale glow. He shook his head, dismissing the rare sight as a hallucination. At least five minutes slid by and then the distinctive and welcome sound of their southern lineman’s shouting filled DeSoto’s sanctuary. An extension ladder and a long fifteen minutes later had Roy standing outside of their prickly enclosure, surrounded by snickering firemen and a panting dog eagerly lapping up water from a helmet. Johnny, a look of disbelief on his face, stood next to the animal holding his stolen, drool soaked glove.

Peters slapped Roy on the shoulder. “I was just telling John here that the mutt saved your lives.”

“Is that so? How?” The paramedic asked curiously, moving out from under the heavy hand and rolling his shoulders backwards then forwards. His whole body felt sore; he wasn’t used to spending so much time crouching or crawling, at least through basements and brush tunnels.

“Why she came running over to us, dropped Gage’s glove at my feet, and commenced a round of barking that would put a hound to shame. She led us here, yanking me along with her teeth when I didn’t go fast enough; thankfully, that was just in time to catch your buddy here before he face planted into the dirt.” He jerked a thumb towards Johnny, who responded with a scowl and then followed the defiant gesture with a sheepish shrug, confirming the truthfulness in the last sentence of the lineman’s statement.

“I think we would have been found sooner or later, and I’m sure John would have landed just fine – it wasn’t that far of a drop,” Roy replied mildly as he glanced at the dog that had finally stopped drinking and was sitting at their feet. She looked up at him, her opened mouth resembling a smile and her tan eyes gazing soulfully at his face. The darker hair above each of her eyes resembled eyebrows, (did dogs have eyebrows?), and right now those ridges of hair were alternately going up and down, up and down like some kind of blinking traffic light. He had to smile at the strangeness but also the cuteness of it.

Peters was shaking his head as they trudged through what appeared, and felt like, the remains of a corn field that had never been cleared of the dead stalks. The skeletal corn that remained brushed against their knees and thighs, rustling and scratching at their legs as bad as or even worse than the spiked tips of the dead berry bushes. And to top it off, DeSoto swore he could hear other odd noises emitting from the churned up dirt and weeds. Funny little sounds that could be from any number of four footed animals, although rats seemed to be occupying the number one spot in his imagination right now, with skunks and raccoons pushing a close second. He jumped when the gregarious lineman thumped a hand down on his t-shirted shoulder, again. He winced, both from the discomfort and the disturbing thought of having to explain these bruises to his wonderful but often wildly imaginative wife.

“What is it Peters?” He asked, stopping. Johnny bumped into him with an audible grunt as Roy looked over at Abraham, barely able to contain his sigh; it seemed his adrenaline was wearing off. Peters stopped alongside of the paramedics and the three men created a tiny island on which the other two firefighters from a different station detoured around with weary steps, carrying the ladder.

“Nothing major, DeSoto, just was curious how you paramedics got yourselves stuck in the middle of that mess yonder,” Abraham Peters replied in his thick drawl, finally removing his hand and gesturing towards the thicket, on their left, with it. Fifteen feet ahead was the unclimbable steep slope that had prevented their swift escape – looking at it now Roy realized if it had been purposely banked that way to keep trespassers away from this side of the barn and the escape hatch that the stray dog had found underneath. While the  blackberry bushes may or may not have been part of the deterrent as surely they couldn’t have been as big as they were now; he couldn’t help wonder if the folks making the illicit booze had ever had to use that route to escape.

He smiled, and once again stretched his neck and shoulders. “I just followed my partner here, let him explain the logic.”

Beside him Gage snorted but kept his comments to himself. By the time they reached their engine, a good long trek around the back of the mammoth structure and then along the opposite side, the cleanup had been finished. Their two rescuers from Engine 14 had stowed their ladder and were climbing aboard their vehicle; the engine roared to life and rumbled away. This left only their Crown at the scene along with several deputies who were waiting to take the paramedics’ statement concerning the fire within the barn. The noises Roy had heard above him in the loft had belonged to three older teenagers, who had narrowly escaped by leaping from the hay door – the smaller door above the main entrance John and Roy had entered. The kids would have probably made a clean getaway except for the fact that one of them had landed wrong and broke his leg; the other two had gone for help instead of abandoning their friend.

“They were smoking up there, weren’t they?” DeSoto queried, glancing over towards the car where two heads were visible in the back seat.

The deputy nodded. “Yep, along with helping themselves to that stash of bootleg up there. All three drunk as skunks; they didn’t feel a thing when they hit the ground, even the one with the busted leg.”

“Skunks, figures,” Johnny muttered in disgust, but his lips were twitching in barely concealed amusement at the man’s choice of words. They finished up with the law, checked in with Captain Hammer, and finally caught a ride on the back of their engine over to where the squad was parked.

“We forgot to pick up my coats back there by the barn,” Roy realized, stopping abruptly and wondering if they had been run over by one of the trucks.

“Nah, Johnson grabbed them and tossed ‘em on the engine. Had a few choice words to say about what was holding the two coats together, too.”

“I bet he did.”

Opening the driver’s door, DeSoto staggered against the frame as sixty pounds of fur swept by and leaped into the seat. Johnny, who was already seated, let out an exclamation of surprise as the stray plopped down and rested her head in his lap.

“Well hey now,’” he crooned softly, scratching her ears. “She must have followed us clear across the yard, Roy.”

“Yeah, suppose so, but what do you plan on doing with her?” He leaned into the cab, scrutinizing the tail that was fanning across his seat in a slow, sideways swish of fur, dirt, and burrs. At his question, the dog upped the tail wagging to medium speed and impatiently butted the hand that had stopped petting her.

Gage cleared his throat and resumed the scratching of ears, looking down at the shepherd and deliberately avoiding the questioning gaze of his partner. “Uh, find her a good home? I can’t have pets……you don’t have a dog do you?”

“No dog, no animals what so ever, at least for right now while the kids are little,” he replied, debating whether to push the dog over or just make her get out of the truck.

“Well there ya go then! Come on Roy, I’ll pay for her vet bills, you know, get her checked out, groomed, and such; I’ll spring for a bag of dog chow too. How can you say no to a face like this?”

Johnny lifted the dog’s muzzle and turned her head so that she was gazing with liquid brown eyes towards Roy. The tail switched to high speed and Roy couldn’t resist an eye roll at the enthusiasm being displayed by both the canine and his partner. He gently nudged the back end of the dog, and was surprised when she gathered her feet under her in a coordinated move and turned around on the narrow expanse of seat, plopping her head down on his lap as he quickly sat in the vacated space. He ran a thoughtful hand over her head as he turned the key in the ignition.

“I would have to the talk it over with my wife, of course, and more importantly see how the dog gets along with kids….I can’t take any chances, Johnny.”

“Of course not,” John agreed amiably, smiling and looking in the passenger side mirror as they started forward. “Must not have been a lot of booze in that barn, huh? They got that fire contained pretty fast.”

“Nope, just that one barrel like I thought.”

“Lucky, real lucky, all of us……” the spoken thought trailed off and an uneasy silence hovered in the cab as they considered how close they had been to the dark presence that always hovered over them.

Roy cleared his throat, not ready for a deep discussion about the grim reaper and the business he conducted on a daily basis. “I’m wondering how Peters knew that glove belonged to you.”

Johnny giggled. “I kinda, well, wrote my name in them. Between the gloves and my helmets, I seem to lose them a lot?” He laughed again and Roy cast a dubious glance towards his suddenly lighthearted partner, wondering if he was supposed to answer the statement that had turned into a question. He decided to go with his own question.

“Gage, are you feeling ok?”

“Sure, why?” Another snicker and even the dog lifted her head and looked over her bony shoulder towards the grinning paramedic. Johnny thrummed his fingers on the seat and then walked the long digits up the stray’s side and scratched lightly; she groaned in happiness and a hind leg began a rapid bicycling motion as he apparently hit a ticklish or sensitive spot. “Although…….”

DeSoto watched the taillights of their engine disappear from view as it gained the paved road and accelerated. He slowed and steered around a pothole that in the waning darkness appeared big enough to swallow their truck, tapping his own fingers against the steering wheel. “And?” He finally prompted, curiosity getting the best of him.

“What proof do you think that moonshine was?”

“Pretty high, I suppose, I guess it depends on whether it was already diluted with….oh!” He braked and stopped the squad so that he could focus his full attention on the kid shifting in the seat next to him. “How much of that stuff actually went down your throat?”

John bared his teeth in a wide smile. “I’ve been told that I’m a happy drunk, and to answer your question, probably a good pint went down the hatch.”

“Oh brother, no wonder you went flying over that hedge like Superman,” he muttered, reaching for the radio. He paused, peering down at the mutt who returned the look with a toothy grin as cheerful as Gage’s; she belched and he jerked her head back as alcoholic fumes assaulted his nostrils. “Is this dog drunk too?”

“She was licking the stuff off my face, you know. And for your information, I’m not intoxicated, at least not too much; I’m just in a good mood.”  His fingers stilled in the dog’s fur and he turned his head towards the side window, thinking about something. “I’m thinking Spiderman…..”

“Say what?” Hand still hovering in the general vicinity of the mic, DeSoto gazed blankly at Johnny.

“More like Spiderman, not Superman, and let me tell you, DeSoto, I LIKE to climb, so that’s my usual speed.” Nodding, Johnny settled back in the seat with a triumphant wiggle and resumed petting the dog. “Aw man, life is good, isn’t it?”

Hearing that odd comment and making an effort to wipe the idiotic expression off his face, one that he could feel stretching his eyes wide open and dragging his chin down to the collar of his t-shirt, Roy blew out a breath and took a long moment to stare out the window. He relaxed as he took in his surroundings outside of the cab - the sky was beginning a slow change of color as the sun started its daily climb even as the moon hovered obstinately in the opposite direction; he then fastened his attention on the scruffy, happy occupants within who were really beginning to grow on him. “Yeah, right now it sure is.”

~TBC~

_A/N – This chapter is dedicated to one of our two beautiful, loyal German shepherds who lost his battle with lymphoma last year. He had the eyebrow thing down to a science, loved to use his head to butt you for attention, and could clear five foot fences with a clumsy but effective leap and scramble.  We also referred to him as a reverse raccoon, as the last couple of years he had white appear around both eyes – even his vet couldn’t figure out what that was about! RIP, Appa…._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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